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Padre Heinrich Walter: predica Father Heinrich Walter: sermon Pater Heinrich Walter bei der Predigt |
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Foto: POS Brehm © 2006 |
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Dear Schoenstatt Family,
The texts of the readings lead us to Athens and Jerusalem.
1. Athens is everywhere
St Paul’s experiences in Athens happened two thousand years ago, and yet we can still experience them today. We could meet up with statements such as, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities", or, "What does this babbler want to say?" (Acts 17, 18) still today. The Areopagus in Athens is our workplace today, perhaps even our own family. Then, like St Paul, we could suddenly be gripped with anger – everywhere we find idols. The idols of those times and today have something in common – they are idols that do not lead to God; they do not reveal his mystery; they do not widen our hearts.
The Athens of St Paul’s time is here in our midst. So we may ask ourselves: What are we to proclaim on our own Areopagus? What is the message we want to give on this Covenant Day to the people around us?
We proclaim that God is a reality, he is alive and visible in whatever happens, in creation, in the people who share my life. We proclaim that Mary has brought this God close to us and leads us to him. We proclaim that in the little chapel, which we call our shrine, we experience our most sacred place, because we become certain of this there. Mary looks at us and understands us. This dialogue becomes a covenant, which gives life a new flavour. It gives meaning to the pain and suffering we experience. It connects me with many people, with the one or other difficult contemporary, and encourages me to work for peace. This covenant is our way that opens up contact with other cultures.
That is why we celebrate the 18th October. We thank God for what we have experiences, for the gifts we have received, for the process of maturation and transformation we have undergone, for the ways we have been led, and we again surrender ourselves completely into this covenant, because we can rely on it, it gives us security and a home.
2. The covenant opens up an expanse before us
The covenant of love is our outlook on the world (Weltanschauung). It not only inspires our personal lives. We are indifferent to nothing that happens around us. We live in a covenant; we are bonded. People should see this in us. There is an answer to every question in the world, even if it only leads us to entrust this question to the merciful love of God in prayer.
Others talk about a world ethos, we enter into a covenant, just as, for example, our young people entered into a covenant for the youth of the world. I am sure that some of you were there when they renewed this covenant in the night of 15 August. In the strength of this covenant our thoughts and our hearts grow wide. We take an interest in other countries. In this way the peoples come closer to us, even if we can’t travel a great deal.
Today we are invited to become consciously aware of some countries. The Schoenstatt Family in Paraguay is celebrating the Silver Jubilee of their first shrine. They reckon with eighty thousand pilgrims taking part in four Holy Masses at the national shrine. They are preparing for the jubilee in a big way, as a postage stamp testifies. They have made their motto known in every part of the country - "todo Paraguay un Tuparenda" (the whole of Paraguay God’s dwelling). They want to pass on their experience with the covenant of love in the shrine to everyone in the country – that God dwells in their midst. Their contribution arising from their covenant for this country has become practical in many initiatives. They are conducting large educational, social and political projects. We may rejoice in their life and proudly represent them this evening at the original shrine.
In these days a million children in Venezuela are praying the Rosary for peace in the world.
In Brazil a new initiative has been taken in addition to the Pilgrim Mother Campaign – the men’s Rosary. It began in the North-East of the country. Today around fifty thousand men pray the Rosary every week in hundreds of parish churches. This doesn’t just promote the spiritual lives of the men, because after their prayer they meet in the Church porch to undertake social activities, e.g., mediating jobs, etc.
We think of the many schools and social projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many of us here are indirectly involved with such projects.
We think of the first young women in Vietnam who want to become Sisters of Mary.
The simple covenant entered into here at this place so many years ago has opened up an expanse before us. This increasingly becomes visible, especially in the Summer months when many groups from foreign countries come here to get to know the place of Schoenstatt’s origin.
When I experience the life that has grown in many countries, I often have the impression that we are only at the beginning, because tremendous spurts of development are taking place on every continent.
The expanse about which we are talking is very varied. It involves more than just nations, cultures and peoples. It also refers to many areas of our social lives. The covenant becomes fruitful in our social, economic, cultural and political lives. We don’t want to be an island of happy people; we can influence public life like salt and yeast. We will here testimonies from our country in this regard during the October Week, and the many initiatives that have been taken in other countries, reaching right up into politics, give us courage.
3. The covenant leads to reciprocity
This growth in extent increasingly leads us reciprocity. People come here not just to encounter the Mother of God in the original shrine, or to hear a word at our founder’s grave and gratefully get to know the origins. They bring tremendous riches with them that can enrich us – their joy in the faith, their vitality and that of the young foundations, their cultural diversity. The returning current is in full flow. Now that Schoenstatt has spread all over the world, the original life that has grown in those countries is again returning to its origin. In this way international Schoenstatt becomes a living organism whose members have a sound self-esteem, healthy organs, nerves and circulation. We can expect plenty of surprises. In Switzerland, for example, the Movement is growing well at the moment among the citizens from other countries, who make a good contribution to the Swiss Schoenstatt Family.
These processes can only become really fruitful if we widen our thinking and acquire an international mentality. In the past few months we Germans have become known for our tremendous hospitality. The gift of a home means offering scope for meeting with the attitude of wanting to learn from one another. In the year of the World Youth Day we had some important experiences here. For Schoenstatt this means that we Germans may not always want to be the "teachers". We have been entrusted with the charism of the beginnings. That is to say, we have to keep the beginnings open so that everyone can experience them. Part of this charism includes rejoicing in what other nations contribute, perhaps even better than we can. We don’t always have to be the world champions! Our openness and joy in the difference of the other peoples will be important for a vital, international and family-like relationship, because everyone wants to be at home at the place of origin.
4. The expansion of our covenant
If we want to open up an expanse before ourselves, we won’t mange unless we grow in greater depth. The more we open the covenant into other peoples, the deeper our roots must grow. So today we offer our hearts to the Blessed Mother. May her love take hold of the core of our personality, may the uniting force of love make us like her, as Fr Kentenich said in the eighth Lenten Sermon in 1954 on the game of love:
"It takes a long time for the merging of souls in love to remove all selfish atmospherics; for all hardening, all tension and annoyance that arise from the false demands of our pleasure-seeking self, and that force themselves to the surface, to be set aside; and for it to bring about blissful two-in-oneness that calls out jubilantly, "My love is mine and I am his" (Cant 2,16). I no longer look so much for his gifts, I no longer seek myself; I seek him. The process of purification and liberation from self that is connected with this is very painful, but at the same time it makes us deeply happy. The game of love that is at work here is really exciting. It is breathtaking and makes us profoundly happy." (S.292)
Let us now prepare ourselves for this. The Blessed Mother invites us to step out into the wide world, to allow our covenant of love to expand, to consciously include some people or things in it – certain people, some initiatives, or the leader of North Korea. These could also be very personal things, e.g., a certain tendency of our emotions to love far more than until now.
May our Blessed Mother lead us into the expanse she is opening up before us.
Authorized text - Fr Heinrich Walter