ORIGINAL SHRINE, Maria Fischer •
It was a cold, wet and grey day in January and it was his 120th birthday. Most of the people in Vallendar and its surrounding area were more concerned about the threatening flooding of the Rhine and Mosel rivers, and of the trees uprooted by the storm a few days earlier. Joseph Engling, Schoenstatt’s youthful co-founder from Polish Warmia, formerly part of Prussia, was born on 5 January 1898 and died on 4 October 1918 – a hundred years ago this year. So this would have been his 120th birthday.
Thanks to the initiative of Bernadette and Norbert Weweler, the whole of Schoenstatt will share in a very special birthday present to Joseph Engling. “While we were mailing the plan for the Masses in the Original Shrine, we heard French Hymns to Mary coming from the Original Shrine. A group of French girls were entering into the covenant of love just then,” they told the local Schoenstatters that afternoon – as well as Schoenstatt.org.
Covenant of love in the Original Shrine
For the last few days a colourful group of French pilgrims has been visiting Schoenstatt. The girls belonging to a group of Marian Apostles had entered into their covenant of love with great joy on this special day, accompanied by all the French pilgrims and the good wishes and prayers of many who got to know about this covenant of love on Joseph Engling’s birthday.
Photos: Weweler
Original: German, 5.1.2018. Translation: Mary Cole, Manchester UK
