CHILE/MEXICO/ALEMANIA, Maria Fischer •
Conference planning, translations, coordination, discussions via Whatsapp between Chile, Mexico and Germany was done with great effort, terrific anticipation, and considerable sacrifice. Now, on the morning of Mary’s Nativity, everything that was humanly possible to prepare for the launching of the first Marriage Strengthening with Schoenstatt in Germany had been done. What remained was to place it in Mary’s hands and to crown her as Queen of Marriage Strengthening in Germany.
They were nine couples from Chile and Mexico, who met at nine o’clock on this sunny feast day at the Original Shrine, along with the leaders of the International Federation of Families, Rosa Maria and Josef Wieland, and Fr. Ignacio Camacho. There was emotion in every gesture, face and every trembling voice. The majority of them had arrived the previous afternoon; they were jetlagged, and they would be leaving again on Monday.
They were here to offer a project, born in Mexico twenty years ago that now has been “exported” to Costa Rica, Italy, Paraguay, Ecuador and recently to the United States. It is a project that offers couples a renewal and strengthening of the marriage covenant. It is a selfless service to the lives of couples, and therefore to families, the Church and society.
Queen of Marriage Strengthening
They were in the Original Shrine, as those allies for the mission that Fr. Kentenich went to seek in Latin America, to fill this place and this country with the power of life that has come from the source of the missionary Covenant of Love.
They crowned the Blessed Mother in the Original Shrine as Queen of Marriage Strengthening with a simple prayer. On the altar, there were sheets with the participants’ names and photos, and there were thirty-six credentials. With them, they entrusted each of the eighteen German couples participating in the first Marriage Strengthening in Germany to the Blessed Mother. Now they and the “Forta” were in her hands.
I love you…
At the end of the Mass, each of the nine Latin American couples, one after another, went forward to renew their marriage covenant with simple, sincere words. “You, are God’s plan for my life,” a man said to his wife, eyes radiant with joy. There were tears, smiles, tender gestures, laughter, applause and great emotion.
There was no better preparation for what they wanted to give the eighteen participating couples and the many more who hopefully will follow. What they would expect was what these nine couples did first: they renewed themselves in this great “I love you,” once again, with a stronger and even more profound love.
The first Marriage Strengthening in Germany could now begin.
Original: Spanish. Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA. Edited: Melissa Peña-Janknegt, Elgin, TX USA
