Challenged to live out our Covenant of Love fearlessly

A Celebration and a new Challenge: Experiences of the October Week in Johannesburg, South Africa

Procesión al Santuario “Aurum Patris” Procession to the  Aurum Patris Shrine Prozession zum Aurum Patris-Heiligtum
En el Santuario In the Shrine Im Heiligtum Fotos: Sarah-Leah Pimentel © 2007

SOUTH AFRICA, Sarah-Leah Pimentel. On the weekend of 13 and 14 October, the Schoenstatt Family in Johannesburg, South Africa celebrated its October Weekend. Over these two days, about 200 people were present. The theme for the weekend was "Love that Motivates."

Saturday morning started with a special treat: Mass celebrated by one of the Schoenstatt Fathers, Fr. Michael Hagan, who came up from Cape Town, especially to be with them. In his homily, he spoke of the insecurities of the present age particularly in their country. These things often prevent them from loving because they are in fear and in conservatism, both in their lives and their faith.

Thus fed by the Mass and a quick tea break, the Family listened to the reports from the different branches’ activities over the past year. The brief reports showed a fruitful year which included the recent pilgrimage by several members of the Mothers’ Union to Milwaukee, the participation of members of the Family League in a diocesan project for the renewal of family life, the Schoenstatt Sisters’ work to build up the Movement in Kenya, and various youth projects by members of the Young Women’s League.

Answering the challenge of the post-Christian era

Fr. Michael Hagan then spoke to them about how they can live out their love and freedom in a "post-Christian" age that is changing at an overwhelming rate. The answer to this challenge is in the Covenant of Love with their Mother. In living out the Covenant, they begin the introspective process of establishing their own identity and thus freeing themselves from the things that bind them. In the journey to greater inner freedom, the capacity to love God and others increases to the point where they are prepared to suffer in joy on their behalf.

As they broke away into small workshop groups, they took elements of this talk to begin searching for ways in which they could live out their love in practical ways over the next year. Each group was asked to summarise their discussion onto large sheets of paper for the other groups to see and thus begin to generate ideas for their motto for the coming year.

Refreshed by a simple lunch, they returned to the hall for an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. During this time of prayer they took their Schoenstatt heroes with them and considered how their love for others stemmed from their intimate relationship with Christ. It was finally time for the highlight of the day: to discover their motto for 2008. Within forty-five minutes they had found a motto that the Family was content to strive with for the next year. The process was facilitated by their MC for the weekend, Tony Joseph, who kept the session light-hearted and made sure that everyone was involved in the formulation of their motto: Challenged to live out our Covenant of Love fearlessly.

Motivated by Love

Sunday began with an hour of adoration in the Shrine under the topic, St. Paul: Love that motivates, which focused their attention on how their love can be as consuming as his. This was followed by the input given by Sr. Joanne, who examined two opposing and often equally powerful motivations – love and fear. She explained that love is a God-given force but that fear often prevents them from loving. Her challenge to them was to reduce their fear so that they can love to a greater extent. By finding their motivation in Schoenstatt and their Covenant of Love, they can begin to live out their love fearlessly. In this way they can also bring others to Schoenstatt by looking at their motivation and then using that to draw them to the love of God. They then linked up with various members of the Schoenstatt Family around the world and asked them what their motivation in Schoenstatt was.

Luciana and Edso Mocelin from Brazil shared how their specific mission is to raise their young family within the Covenant of Love, but also live their own Covenant in Schoenstatt by providing formation to young families, welcoming pilgrims, and Luciana works as the editor of the Schoenstatt Magazine in Brazil and contributor of their local Schoenstatt newspaper. Manuela Mañanes from Argentina was in Schoenstatt, Germany when they called her and she gave their Family a wonderful gift by taking them all with her to the Original Shrine with her and also shared how she lives out her Schoenstatt mission in developing a project called Into the Vineyard which in the coming years hopes to see many young adults in the movement going to other countries to work as missionaries within the local Schoenstatt centres. Finally Beth Rockers, from the USA, told them that her motivation within the movement stemmed from the international nature of the family and her work as a Girls’ leader even though she currently lives about six hours from the nearest Shrine.

Holy moments of celebration in pictures, conversations, and Mass

The talk concluded with Sr. Joanne’s photographs of a recent pilgrimage to Burundi, while she was working in Kenya, which showed the fervour of the Schoenstatt Family where 12, 000 people gathered at the Shrine in celebration. Filled with so many ideas to motivate them in their own local Family, they were definitely ready for lunch and conversation did not wane until it was time for Mass. This was celebrated by Fr. Michael Wuestenberg who spoke beautifully on the day’s readings and the importance of healing. Mass was concluded by a procession to the Shrine where the Pilgrim Mother images that were brought along for the day were blessed and two families renewed their Consecration. Mother blessed them with beautiful weather during the weekend despite the forecast of thunderstorms. No sooner had their weekend come to an end than the clouds began to gather and rain came down, sending every one dashing for their cars!

Covenant of Love’s fruits through mission

Their October week culminated on Thursday evening, October 18, as the Family met for Mass at the Shrine and, after having spent the entire day looking anxiously at the sky for signs of continued rain, the clouds stayed away during Mass. Fr. Wuestenberg reminded them of the blessing of their Shrine thirty-two years ago, asking them to reflect on the fruits that they have given to this "temple of God" over time and the fruits that have revealed themselves in their lives and the lives of others. In this fashion, they were sent out to continue in the mission of St. Luke, proclaiming the Good News as the living stones of the temple of God.

The celebrations of the week brought them together, gave them the opportunity to share experiences with each other, reminded them of their unity, and gave a new impulse and new commitment to live out their Covenant of Love in their world without any fear.