To be a missionary, is a special grace of God

The Rosary Campaign is growing in Santa Rosa, Santiago, and Villa Florida in the district of Misiones, Paraguay

Cerca de Villa Florida en Misiones, Paraguay Near Villa Florida in Misiones, Paraguay Bei Villa Florida in Misiones, Paraguay
Es una gracia ser misionero It is a grace to be missionary Es ist ein Gnade, Missionar zu sein
Una evangelización familiar Evangelization of the families Für die Evangelisierung der Familien
Las tierras de misiones reciben una nueva visita misionera The mission lands receive a new missionary visit Das Land der Missionen empfängt von neuem Missionsbesuch Fotos: Pardo/Archiv © 2008

PARAGUAY, Margarita Peña de Paredes. Santa Rosa, in the Missions district of Paraguay, 248 kiometers south of Asunción, is one of the most important cities with a Jesuit influence in Paraguay. It was established in 1698 by Father Ranzonier and became part of the most important Jesuit Settlements. It has an historic center of great value with extraordinary indigenous houses that are fully functional for businesses and homes. The bell tower of the era and the famous Chapel of Loreto, with its incomparable carvings and unique murals in the settlement make this a place that tourists visit. The members of the Rosary Campaign Team from the South travel often to Santa Rosa not as tourists; but as missionaries to meet with the missionaries of this city.

Father Bernardo Rios, the pastor and diocesan clergyman, has been there for two years. He was assigned after the Jesuit Fathers left the parish. The Schoenstatt missionaries visited with him before beginning the conference. The theme for the conference was: To be missionaries, is a special grace of God, the last conference was specifically based on the commitment assumed when one is commissioned with a Pilgrim MTA.

Twenty-five missionaries from Santa Rosa and eight from neighboring Santiago along with two religious: Sisters Fortunata and Emeteria attended the conference. In his talk, Father Pontes especially stressed praying the Rosary. The picture represents the persons of Mary and her Son Jesus, who go out to evangelize the families by showering their graces in the places they go. This is the important reason the Blessed Mother can’t remain in one place, and the reason she goes on pilgrimage from house to house, because that is her mission.

An evangelization of the family

It is very different from other images of the Blessed Mother that may or may not go on pilgrimage. The Schoenstatt Pilgrim MTA has a special mission: to go on pilgrimage, to travel to and return to homes initiating an evangelization of the family as requested by John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

The conference concluded with a joyful and fraternal lunch. On the return trip they stopped in the area of Villa Florida for the blessing of the first Home Shrine in this area, at the home of the missionary, Ilda Paiva de Caballero.

Missionaries, neighbors, and many children attended the ceremony of the Home Shrine blessing.

The visit to Villa Florida has already borne fruit, because a shortly after that blessing, the second Home Shrine was blessed at the home of the missionary, Santa Ana Bogado de Rivaldi. The Pilgrim MTA carries the stream of graces that emerged on October 18^th in the Original Shrine at Schoenstatt, Germany to the confines of the world, and to areas in the interior of Paraguay of this broad region, which also includes Parguay, Brazil, and Argentina where centuries ago the Jesuits sowed the seeds of faith and began an enormous and magnificent task of enculturation of Christianity, admired by our Founding Father, who in 1916 and 1917 presented it to his students as a model of Christian social order, as a true Nation of God.

Source: Tuparenda, magazine of the Schoenstatt Movement in Paraguay. With kind permission.

Translation: Celina Garza, Harlingen, TX, USA/amj