The Blessed Mother called me from her Shrine

Tenth Anniversary of the "Entry of the Blessed Mother to Minillas"

Misa en lobby de Minillas Holy Mass in the lobby of Minillas Heilige Messe in der Lobby von Minillas
El Centro Gubernamental de Minillas en San Juan Government Center Minillas in San Juan Regierungskomplex Minillas in San Juan
Misioneros de la Virgen Peregrina en Minillas Missionaries of the Pilgrim MTA in Minillas Missionare der Pilgernden Gottesmutter in Minillas
Misa de Ceniza en Minillas Ash Wednesday Mass in Minillas Aschermittwochmesse in Minillas
El secreto detrás de todo: el Santuário Magnificat, Hatillo The secret behind: The Magnificat Shrine Das Geheimnis dahinter: das Magnifikat-Heiligtum in Hatillo

PUERTO RICO, Gerardo L. Crespo. The Governmental Center of Minillas in San Juan is the largest and most important Government Center of Puerto Rico. There are fourteen main offices of government agencies, including the Authority of Public Buildings. Thousands of public employees work at the center, in addition to hundreds of people who visit daily to receive or to offer services to the government. This is the place where the Blessed Mother decided to establish her throne of grace 10 years ago…"We are convinced that the Blessed Mother has given us the mission to extend the Marian Kingdom of the Father among our brothers in the work place and their families", said some Schoenstatt brothers who work there.

The Blessed Mother entered for the first time on March 15, 1996, so this year we celebrated the 10^th Anniversary of her "Entry to Minillas". They wanted to end this year of grace with the celebration of a Holy Mass of Thanksgiving. This Mass was held on Thursday, October 16^th and the celebrant was Father Aníbal J. Rosario, OFM Cap. As always with the things of God, everything began in a small manner and with the "Yes" of someone who heard God’s call to fulfill his mission.

We felt that our hearts were on fire

I began to work as an engineer in the Construction Area in 1990. At that time I did not know the Lord. I had not converted. During the month of June 1995 I received a very special invitation, which marked a milestone in my life: I attended the priestly ordination of one of my university friends, who had graduated with me as an engineer. This priestly ordination of my friend and now Father David Antonio María, within the Congregation of the Slaves of the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary, was celebrated at the Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the neighborhood of Campo Alegre of Hatillo, " in the shadow of the Magnificat Shrine of our Mother and Queen"…It was during this Eucharist celebration that I received a very special grace that was visibly expressed with many tears.

A new stage of my life was beginning. I was beginning to walk holding on to the Blessed Mother’s hand and I did not know it. During the following weeks I began to feel an enormous necessity to return to Campo Alegre and to participate in Holy Mass. There was a very great force that attracted me to this place and I did not know what it was. The Blessed Mother was calling me from her Shrine. After two months I received the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time in more than twenty years. All my life received a strong impact and transformation: in my family life, my professional life, my sentimental life and of course in my work life. Some of my colleagues at work were my confidants of all the spiritual experience that was flooding my life. But in general terms I was very much misunderstood. "Gerardo was speaking about spiritual subjects!" Nobody could believe it. In spite of the fact that some of my colleagues were Catholics, God was not present in the work place.

The first holy card of the Blessed Mother

Thanks to the Lord, I was able to freely share my experiences with two colleagues at work, both converts: They are the Architect Luis A. Colón, who gave me the first holy card of the Blessed Mother in March of 1996 at my place of work, which he had obtained at the Cenacle Shrine of the Immaculate in Juana Díaz. This picture was the one that always accompanied me at my work place. Providentially, it was the Year dedicated to the Blessed Mother by the Church of Puerto Rico, in preparation for the Jubilee Tridium. In was during the month of September of this year that I began to speak of my spiritual experience with another colleague at work: Edgardo Rivera, who was rapidly converting into a great lover of the Blessed Mother and of the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign. Later, during the year 2005, it was Edgardo who began the Work of the Missionary Motorcycles and the Campaign of Unity. The four of us began to meet in my office almost everyday after work to exchange and to enjoy all of our spiritual experiences. The four of us felt that our hearts were on fire…It was the beginning of the "conquest of the Blessed Mother of Minillas". Four soldiers at the service of the Blessed Mother "taking possession of the beach of Minillas". Since that year, each one of us began to preach the great love of the Blessed Mother and the plan of Divine Providence in our lives.

Our daily work was a service of love of God and of our brothers

Other brothers began to join us and in this way the "Blessed Mother was extending herself" throughout all the floors of the building, and later to other buildings of the Center. In March of the year 1997, I sealed my Covenant of Love with the Blessed Mother in the Magnificat Shrine of Campo Alegre, Hatillo. Two months later the colleagues from work made the first pilgrimage to the Magnificat Shrine and we participated in a one day retreat. That day, providentially, it was the 31^st of May. None of us knew about the significance of this date for the Schoenstatt Family. The graces we received during this retreat were many: above all, the grace of conversion for many. From this date forward, those of us who felt that we were called by the Blessed Mother to evangelize in the work place, made an annual pilgrimage to the Shrine on a date close to the 31^st of May. In this way we renewed our commitment with our Mother and Queen. Our major contribution to the Capital of Grace of the Blessed Mother is and always will be to offer our daily work as a service of love of God, but also to our brothers. We tried to demonstrate this love at work that we carried out for our brothers, by our brothers, and with our brothers. We were stimulated when we heard the prayer of our Father and Founder: "In your shrine you wish to form an army of prayer in the midst of a barren world…"(Heavenwards, p. 52).

The picture of the Blessed was extending itself in the hearts of many

From this first pilgrimage the idea of calling ourselves the 31^st of May Group emerged. The following year (1998), the picture of the Blessed Mother little by little extended itself to the desks, computers, and offices and above all to the hearts of many brothers in Minillas. We agreed to meet on Tuesdays at noon, at the square of the Center to read and to meditate on the Gospel for the day; and in the same way, on Thursdays at noon we gathered to pray the Holy Rosary. This practice has continued until now. Every first Fridays of the month, a diocesan priest celebrates Holy Mass in the lobby of one of the buildings. This Eucharistic celebration has continued until now, each time with more enthusiasm and joy, and each time more people attend. We began Lent with Holy Mass on Ash Wednesday, which is still very well attended. During Holy Week we celebrate the Stations of the Cross in the square of the Center for everyone’s benefit. This devotion is still celebrated. In front of the Center there is a hospital, and we use the lunch hour once a week to visit the sick and to pray for them.

A miracle of the Blessed Mother in Minillas

During 1998 I felt the motto for the group in my heart "borrowed from Father Hernán Alessandri’s book: The Evangelizing Proposal of Schoenstatt: Mary, our whirlwind towards the Holy Trinity". This is how we arrived to the year 2000, the Jubilee Year, in which the Blessed Mother gave us the logo for our Groups that very well encompassed what was happening at our work place. The whirlwind represents the Blessed Mother "that attracts her children and takes them to the Holy Trinity") with four

traces of different colors, representing the Father and Founder’s four milestones and consequently the history of Schoenstatt and that of the first four years of the Group. Furthermore, it shows the Magnificat Shrine, the cradle and home of our love for the Blessed Mother. And finally, a red dove, which symbolizes the Schoenstatt Pentecostal milestone: the 31^st of May of 1949.

By then, there was truly a transformation of life for many of us. There were many testimonies of miracles of physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. Many of our brothers who had fallen away from the Church returned. Many returned to the sacraments. The work of the Blessed Mother in Minillas was visible.

I would like to give testimony about a miracle regarding a boy who was just nine months old, one of the many worked by the Blessed Mother. The boy’s grandfather was an engineer that was hired by our agency. Once he came to the our office for the purpose of collecting some money that was owed to him to cover the costs for an urgent trip of his grandson to Boston, because he was on the brink of kidney failure, caused by kidney stones. The short time that the engineer was in our office was enough for us to speak to him about the Blessed Mother and about the graces received in the Shrine. After a few days this engineer and his wife visited the Magnificat Shrine and they prayed for the healing of their grandson. The boy arrived to Boston in a few days and he was examined by the doctors, who found no trace of the kidney stones. The doctors in Boston could not scientifically explain the healing. The news of this miraculous healing spread rapidly through Minillas for the glory of our Mother and Queen.

During this same year I sealed my Membership Consecration in the Magnificat Shrine. Many of my co-workers accompanied me.

To understand the Campaign one must submerge oneself in the whirlpool

It is important to point out that one important fruit of this stream of graces in Minillas is the unity among all the Catholics. The Blessed Mother was the reason of unity among all the brothers without noticing the different movements they belonged to. They were all around the Blessed Mother. In the same way, all the brothers of all professions and occupations united to pray, without considering "who was the boss of whom".

In the year 2001, we were invited to preach in the Oasis Home Shrine in San Juan and at the Encounters for Coordinators about the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign in the Archdiocese and specifically about the life of the Servant of God Joao Pozzobon. These talks were offered to the coordinators of the Pilgrim MTA in the Shrine of Solidarity in Cabo Rojo, with the motto: To understand the Rosary Campaign one must submerge oneself in the whirlpool that is Mary…"(words spoken by Father Guillermo Carmona during the Jubilee of the Pilgrim MTA in Brazil).

They were insatiable in their desire to know Schoenstatt

By this time my three co-workers, who began the road with the Blessed Mother, are no longer in Minillas: Edgardo had changed jobs, Luis had retired and Rafael had died. However, the Blessed Mother had taken the necessary precautions so that together brothers would take on the responsibilities of the apostolate in Minillas, and in this way the irruption of the Blessed Mother would continue. That is how Mary, Miriam, Madeline, Luxette, the two Enriques and many others arrived.

During this year we were invited to tape a monthly radio program, Radio Program Paths of Light, of the Schoenstatt Movement. We were invited to speak about the Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign and its fruits in our lives. This taping has continued uninterruptedly until now. At the beginning we taped directly at the radio station and later we acquired the computer equipment and we began to tape in my Home Shrine. During this year (August 12, 2003, Father Alberto Eronti wrote a news article in Schoenstatt.de about his experience with some of our Group brothers at the Magnificat Shrine of Campo Alegre, which read as follows: "I had the opportunity to have two meetings with couples groups, one Mothers’ groups and "the 31^st of May Circle". They are insatiable in the desire of knowing about the spiritual world of Schoenstatt".

In 2004, we prepared a Christmas gift for our family of Minillas: the celebration of the Jíbara (Peasant) Mass with the Choir from the Parish of Our Lady of Mercy from Cayey. This gift was possible thanks to many of our brothers who work in Minillas and outside of Minillas, and it continues to be offered to this day.

The Shrine of all of us

This year, the Group received a great joy from the Blessed Mother: the blessing of the Matri Ecclesiae Shrine in Belmonte, to which we feel spiritually attached. Why? Its architecture in the shape of a spiral or whirlwind evokes the logo of the Group. Father Eronti tells us in a news item a few days after the blessing: "The esplanade with the design of spiral shell, which makes it irregular, is already finished and it gives the optical illusion that the Shrine has a certain movement that welcomes the pilgrim", in our case, the hundreds of our brothers who visit us in the work place, and who meet the Blessed Mother for the first time.

My life’s hope is built on you, my crucified Lord, and on your Bride

In the year 2005, the Unity Cross began to go on pilgrimage among the co-workers. This Cross is the symbol of unity of all the co-workers without noticing any differences…The inscription at the foot of the Cross reads: "My life’s hope is built on you, my crucified Lord, and on your Bride." (Heavenwards, p. 90).

We again enthusiastically prepared the Jíbara Mass for our brothers, as a Christmas gift. The Pilgrim MTA continues visiting the homes of many brothers who work with us. The brothers feel called to visit our Mother and Queen in the Shrine. José, Carlos, Miguel, Diana, Madeline, Adalberto, Rosanette, Norberto and many others join the group.

From now on it will be called the Garden of Mary Hall

The road was prepared for the year 2006, the great celebration of the 10^th Anniversary of the "Entry of the Blessed Mother in Minillas" This year we began the season of Lent with the Ash Wednesday Mass with the pleasant and appreciated presence of the Superior of the Institute of the Sisters of Mary, Sister Isabel. The Blessed Mother made herself present in the hearts of all of us who were present.

During the month of April we celebrated a prayer ceremony for peace and understanding of all the brothers who work in the government and for all the country. Newspaper reporters were present at this activity and we were able to take the message of unity that we have experienced throughout these years. As always, the Blessed Mother accompanied us…

On Father’s death day, we began Bible classes at noon, offered by Father Francisco Morales. Another gift from the Blessed Mother to her children…

The Blessed Mother chose the day of October 26, 2006, for the great celebration of the 10^th Anniversary. The Eucharistic celebration was prepared very carefully; it was held in ha hall that was especially decorated for the occasion. The celebrant was Father Aníbal Rosario, OFM Cap. At the beginning of the Mass I expressed to my brothers: "This hall is named Garden Hall…until now. From now on it will be called Garden of Mary Hall. We should be this Garden of Mary that the Founding Father desired. Let us pray for this during the Eucharist…."The happiness and joy in the Spirit of God that enveloped us this day was overflowing. It was a great feast of brothers who love the Blessed Mother and our Founding Father.

And perhaps, there will even be a Wayside Shrine for the Blessed Mother in Minillas

Our short term goals include the preparation and the commissioning of missionaries of the Pilgrim MTA from Minillas, under the coordination and direction of the Sisters of Mary in Cabo Rojo. To stimulate and to help in forming groups in other Agencies or Institutions of the government to take the Schoenstatt message to the work place and therefore to many homes. We want to design our own page on the Internet to establish the communication among all the brothers. And if the Blessed Mother desires, perhaps we can even have a Wayside Shrine of the Blessed Mother in Minillas, so we can sing glories of Mary together. I want to conclude with these words of Father Alessandri, as a manner of exhortation: Ask Mary to establish herself in the place where we work so that she will help us feel the presence of God, and that is why we are working with him and for him"

Translation: Celina Garza, Harlingen, TX, USA