Apostolic Visit to Panama: My Heart is your Shrine
P. José Luis Correa Lira
Being part of the network of daughter shrines connected to the Original Shrine, helps us to better understand the meaning of the Heart Shrine that is in unity with the Original Shrine just as we recognize that connection in the daughter shrines. where we feel sheltered.
In Heavenwards, Schoenstatt’s book of meditations, there is a prayer that recognizes this provenance from the shrines: “My room (home) is your shrine”.
What is experienced in the Shrine?
In a Schoenstatt shrine one experiences the presence of God through the Blessed Mother. This is possible thanks to Father Kentenich’s faith in the Covenant of Love. He asked the Blessed Virgin to take possession of the little chapel and make it a place of pilgrimage. This makes it different from any other basilica, church, or cathedral.
What graces do we experience in the Schoenstatt Shrine?
In the Schoenstatt Shrine we feel welcomed, sheltered, and a sense of belonging.
We are transformed in the hands of our educator, the Blessed Mother, she has God’s mandate which she received at the foot of the cross, she is an educator of faith. Interior transformation, without excluding the physical miracles. The formula “Nothing without you, nothing without us” reflects her pleading intercession for her children, children of God. She brings forward, as she did at the wedding feast of Cana, our petitions and their fulfillment, if we ask her to do so and if they are aligned with God’s will.
Our ascetic commitment to Schoenstatt’s mission
Nevertheless, our collaboration is also necessary, we can go on pilgrimage to the shrines that are close to us in Central America and the Latin American region. As members of the Schoenstatt Movement, we commit ourselves to use the ascetic means to become evangelizing agents, instruments of her mission and to take our Blessed Mother to every neighborhood, to every place where we engage ourselves.
The mission is to extend those fruits that are expected of us, abundant fruits. And that is the third grace that flows from the Shrine, apostolic fruitfulness. Sometimes fruitfulness is not perceived immediately, the seed has to fall into the ground and die to bear fruit. We hope to have a daughter shrine in Panama soon. We will see how much fruit the seed sown by Father Romulo will bear beyond the home, room and work shrines that are already present.
The Covenant of Love
We seek to resemble Mary. The Girls’ Youth have made a song out of this formula: “may whoever looks at me see you”, let us be a reflection of Mary.
We find some of Father Kentenich’s thoughts in Heavenwards: God the Father we turn to you with our thoughts and our hearts. The heart is not only a muscle. The heart is also a symbol of the ability to love and that differentiates us from the heart of animals which only serves to pump blood.
We do not pray with our minds to an idea of God. We relate in a personal way and in constant meditation we continue to quote Father Kentenich’s reflections: with a pure heart lead us to faithfully carry out our mission as an instrument of your goodness.
Receive my pure heart like that of the Blessed Mother, since, in order to love others, I must feel that I am loved.
Let us celebrate together the birth of Mary, the Immaculate, conceived in God’s heart. On this special day, let us offer gifts of love and reflect on her divine mission. Mary is the open door to heaven, the fertile soil where God becomes incarnate. Together with Jesus, let us ask Mary to live in us, bringing Christ into our midst and preparing the world for Him.
This October 18 we celebrate the 108th anniversary of the founding of the Schoenstatt Movement. Mary accepts the invitation to establish herself in the Shrine.
