Santuario en Manchester, Inglaterra Shrine in Manchester, England Heiligtum in England, Manchester Foto: McVicar © 2006

ENGLAND, Mary Cole. On February 2, Fr Duncan McVicar gave the first of a series of three talks on Schoenstatt’s spirituality after the evening Mass. It was an open invitation, and he had arranged under 50 chairs in the hall. Mass was to be in the shrine as usual. However, between 7.00 and 7.30 p.m. the parking area beside the church filled and the squash in the shrine became standing room only. Despite the icy weather people were standing outside. So those in charge had to move everyone into the hall and fetch chairs rapidly. The other morning, 94 chairs were counted, and every chair had been occupied!

Twenty people came from Liverpool. A hospital chaplain came with all the people who would normally have attended his evening Mass in the hospital chapel. They were all eager to get to know more about Father Kentenich’s spirituality.

Prophets passing on faith to the next generation

The subject Fr Duncan chose was Instrument Spirituality. He will develop it over the next two Thursday evenings. That evening he took baptism as his starting-point, through which we share in Christ’s task to be prophet, priest and shepherd. The first evening was devoted to his prophetic task, which Fr Duncan made very practical by showing how we are all prophets in passing on the faith to the next generation. As he made clear, no matter how old we are, we all belong to a family, we all have contact with young people, we all exercise an influence on the young. In the discussion afterwards it turned out that there were a number of teachers and head teachers in the audience, who had greatly appreciated what had been said.

It was a bit difficult to unscramble the cars outside the church afterwards, but it was done with great good humour, and in the end everyone got away safely.

Later in the year the talks will be continued, so that covenant spirituality and everyday spirituality will also be covered. "We can only pray that word will spread that we have a treasure we want to share with others", someone said.