From kd1645-covenant-greetings at mail.mchosting.eu Sat May 19 10:43:58 2012 From: kd1645-covenant-greetings at mail.mchosting.eu (Covenant Greetings) Date: Sat, 19 May 2012 10:43:58 +0200 Subject: [covenant-greetings] Covenant Greetings - May 2012 Message-ID: <4FB75D4E.7030008@schoenstatt.org> Dear collaborators, allies and friends ofschoenstatt.org, our international web page: Happy 18th, 882 days from October 18, 2014, on pilgrimage, working, and together on our road toward the jubilee of the Covenant of Love, committed to the development of a covenant culture in all the areas of life of the men/women of today._The covenant culture is Schoenstatt's response to the question of the Church and of society:What does Schoenstatt do?_ With a covenant culture manifested and concretized in apostolic projects at the service of others --that are always shown on our web page - Schoenstatt "shows with deeds" that it truly loves the Church, families, youth, the poor and the marginalized, society, the business, political, and the educational world, the world of development and investigation and everyone who has something to do with men/women in their search of living in covenant with themselves, with God, with others, with nature and work.It is Schoenstatt's concrete contribution to the development of a new social order, a realization of its call to build a new world - from the covenant and through new men/women. In covenant,each person can contribute something to this world that we desire within their apostolic field and according to his/her personal vocation; such as we read in Father Jos? Mar?a's comments on schoenstatt.org:"It is beautiful to see how the Church is assuming our charismstic contribution, our Covenant of Love and its creative strength in a covenant culture through our "saints' and our apostolic service ... Each according to his/her vocation and together as Father's Family, from the confrontation with the signs of the times and offering works of love that irradiate this same sanctity as Saint John says:"Children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and truth". (1John 3, 18). During these days I am in Memhoelz in southern Germany (there is an article but not yet translated into English) , where Father's statue will be blessed and erected on May 20th (in the midst of construction in the house where a new cafeter?a and much more is being built).Father's statue will be placed on the way to the Shrine, with a glance toward the house -- the birthplace of apostolic projects -- and toward the world.Last night a six year old girl explained why:"You know, he waits for you when you go to the Shrine, to accompany you toward the construction work.To continue to build a covenant culture with him...:which is capable of changing the world of today, such as Benedic'ts culture of stability changed the middle ages of Europe... We understand our contributions to a communication culture in the spirit of 2014 -- as editors, authors, or readers -- as our grain of sand in the development of this covenant culture and the covenant solidarity as its own soul. www.mayfeelings.com is a contribution to this covenant solidarity or its expression of the new social network "that prays to change the world":"Finally, the social network that we all desire", a collaborator from Germany commented after reading the article (soon to be translated also into english - so far available in Spanish, German, Portuguese) .I can only say:that is how it is. *Today the international covenant greetings arrive from a Homeshrine in Florian?polis, Brazil* What a month! What a day!We celebrate the 18th, covenant day in the month of May, the month dedicated to the Holy Virgin and the 31st of May. Our greeting on this covenant day for the collaborators of schoenstatt.org throughout the world comes from this extensive Brazil- where it would take beautiful Switzerland two hundred seven times to fill. We especially greet the Pilgrim MTA -- John Pozzobon's original Pilgrim MTA -- that began its pilgrimage throughout of Brazil on April 18th, exactly one month ago.(From May 10th to 18th it has returned from its first stage of its itinerary to Santa Maria, from where it was sent.We desire and pray for many blessings for the Schoenstatters from the Diocese of Uruguaiana, in Rio Grande do Sul, who will be visited on May 19th and 20th. Something interesting for the Schoenstatters:the Mother Thrice Admirable still does not have a daughter shrine in this state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. But,it is not always necessary to have a Shrine.According to Schoenstatt spirituality, God builds living shrines, Father Kentenich builds them, the Holy Virgin also builds them in the home and in hearts.It is for this reason that the covenant greeting for this month of May comes from a Homeshrine.Here the Blessed Mother is "pampered" with prayers, visits, meetings, and with flowers from the garden... the Homeshrineis named "Seeds of Hope", the name expresses what we attempt from here:to spread "seeds" among the people with whom we live, among those we meet in daily life, and among those who come to us. Already since his childhood Father Kentenich asked the Holy Virgin:"Give me souls ; keep all else for yourself".(Heavenwards, 172).Later he said: "How many souls you give me God!Each time someone comes to me asking for help, God gives me souls.I can sow seed.As much as I ded?cate myself to them, they will be formed and what I say to them will sprout. We have erected our Homeshrine based on Father' words, and we make an effort so that this Shrine will remain alive.Daily we go on a spiritual pilgrimage to Her in the Original Shrine, we express our gratitude for the gifts of her love and we give Her everything that our daily life brings."In spirit I kneel before your picture". (Heavenwards, p.47).We wanted to have a Homeshrine, so that She would have a permanent place and little by little She will attract them.The photo shows the erection of a Homeshrineon May 1^st , in the home of a neighbor. These visits to the families are the best moments for us, because we can consciously take the Blessed Mother with her gifts of love like little seeds.They are small beginnings of an organic growth.We should not think whether we want to live as a living shrine, we should now demand it of ourselves to live and to carry out the highest ideals.The reality of the Shrine should not be completely molded.However, in our opinion -- to be a living shrine means to learn or to practice: taking each small step of daily life in inner harmony and in this way make it possible that we do not lose the covenant attitude with the Blessed Mother.This makes the reality of being with God grow, it is the conviction that God lives in me. We must nourish the little seed and give it time to grow.This is the reason we maintain contact with the families in order to accomplish the adhesion of religious values in their souls.Presently, just as our Father did and taught from the beginning, it is not so much about objectively forming in religion and the proclamation of doctrine; rather, it is much more about detecting religious strengths and customs that already exist in the people. The most important thing for us is to live an intimate communion with the Blessed Mother in daily life.That state of seeing ourselves and experiencing ourselves as the Blessed Mother's allies must emerge, we should notdirect our lives alone; but rather, we should listen to her voice in the depth of our souls when She tells us:I am with you, what shall we do together? /In the covenant of love, Mechthild Jahn y Renate Dekker (translators for schoenstatt.org)/ In the Covenant of Love,covenant solidarity, and the covenant in its creative strength, I wish everyone, along with the schoenstatt.org team, a blessed 18th, and I promise to take you to Father on May 20th -- so that something you may be concretely experiencing, suffering, desiring or building, may be fulfilled in the motto of this celebration:My hand in your hand, so that the impossible may be POSSIBLE. Possible on our pilgrimage as a family toward 2014, with schoenstatt.org, and in everything that we contribute to the covenant culture. I greet you and I appreciate your contributions to schoenstatt.org, Maria Fischer Video of this morning's Mass in the Original Shrine - www.schoenstatt-tv.de Our collaborators Gerti Lehnen, Juan Barbosa and Mar?a Elena Vilches consciously represented us today in the Original Shrine. -- www.schoenstatt.org info at schoenstatt.org -- www.schoenstatt.org info at schoenstatt.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: