Articles

December 17, 2020 By Luciana Loyola

Mother: you must lead our Family

Schoenstatt media community crowns Mary in the Original Shrine

December 17, 2020 - M. Nilza P. da Silva

Webcam Original Shrine - Schoenstatt International

“We say to Mary: you must lead our Family, each and every member, every son and daughter of the Family. We give you this right, you must be the Queen! This is how Father Joseph Kentenich prayed in a moment of great difficulty for Schoenstatt and for the entire world at the coronation of Mary in the Original Shrine on December 10, 1939. The history of the International Schoenstatt Movement and its personal life history prove how seriously the Blessed Mother took the coronation.

“Here we are full of gratitude, to give you responsibility and rights, choosing you as the Queen of Schoenstatt Communication. Last December 10th, about 60 communicators from eight countries joined a prayer from the Original Shrine via online.

Almost all of them are volunteers, enthusiasts, called and chosen by God to take the Schoenstatt charisma, Father Kentenich’s mission to the Church and the entire world. “We want to thank them for all the support and kindness that we, as Schoenstatt International, have experienced.

We are grateful for the commitment of each one, especially in the translations to the different languages and in the critical revision. Thank you very much for the quick, honest and spontaneous responses you have expressed to us. Blessed Mother, we want to thank you for so many small miracles,” expressed Hemma Strutz, from Austria, in her prayer.

Zoom meeting communication team - Schoenstatt International

The proposal for the crowning in the Original Shrine originated from the communicators of Brazil and through Sister M. Cacilda Becker, from the International Coordination, it quickly inflamed the hearts of Germany, the USA, France, Austria, Ecuador, Venezuela and Chile. The diversity of languages is not a problem when the hearts speak the same language. We want to act together with all decision makers in this historic hour and contribute so that future generations can narrate the victorious achievements of our Queen.

In Brazil it was a whole day of crowning. The communicators who could not meet with the others because of their work, received the coronation prayer the day before and they connected to the Original Shrine by webcam early in the morning. An international group met at 8:30 p.m. from Germany and the last group met two hours later at 8:30 p.m. from Brazil. We believe that the Original Shrine has never received so many Schoenstatt communicators together. At the altar, the Virgin contemplated the name of each one, on printed sheets in which each person also wrote their personal intentions for the coronation.

A coronation that connects

During the coronation, in the Original Shrine, the communicators from Araraquara, in the State of Sao Paulo, also crowned a small image of the Virgin of Schoenstatt, gathered in their local shrine. It will travel to the residence of the members of the Communication Team, always reaffirming their confidence in the Queen.

In Poços de Caldas, in the State of Minas Gerais, the coronation also took place in the Shrine. It counted with the participation of many others through the social networks. Monique Vaz, from Mairiporã/SP, joins a small crown with the logo of the communicators of Brazil, making clear to the Queen her mission.

A coronation that inspires and transmits

Enthusiasm for the mission is coupled with responsibility for the consequences of what is communicated. For this reason, among the petitions that are entrusted to the Queen of Communication, all pray with Father Joseph Kentenich: all resistance may be overcome which obstructs our fruitfulness and prevents others from seeing the Father’s plan in faith. Help it to spread throughout the world and go victoriously through all the nations that soon there be one flock and one shepherd leading all peoples to the Trinity. Amen. (Heavenwards, 527-528)

All renew the Covenant of Love with the Queen and undertake a mission, remaining connected by the Queen’s heart, as instruments committed to setting the world on fire. As brothers in the Covenant they experience that in unity there is strength, and it is in sharing that all are enriched.

“In the heart of Mary we are united,” wrote Ana Christina Melquiades of the Institute of Our Lady of Schoenstatt, at the end of the day of the coronation. “Everything for our Queen and for the mission of communication,” adds Caroline Moraes de Freitas, from Pocos de Caldas.

Source: Schoenstatt Brasil

December 16, 2020 By Luciana Loyola

Fr. Bodo-Maria Erhard passed away to the Father’s House

One of the most prominent personalities of the Community of the Schoenstatt Fathers

December 17, 2020 - Heinrich Brehm

On the afternoon of December 13, the third Sunday of Advent, Father Bodo-Maria Erhard, a member of the Schoenstatt Fathers, was called by God to the eternity of Sion, at the age of 96. “As Schoenstatt Fathers we have lost one of the most outstanding personalities of our founding history. We feel very proud, to have had such a distinguished brother in our community,” expressed the Provincial of the Province of Sion of the Schoenstatt Fathers, Father Theo Breitinger, in the obituary of his brother in the community, who had a decisive role in the founding of the community and was its first Superior General between the years 1965 and 1974.

From physicist to theologist

Bodo Erhard was born on April 5, 1924 in Bad Schwalbach, Taunus, Hessen State. After graduating from high school in 1942 in Wiesbaden, he was recruited by the Army due to the war. After completing his high school education, he was able to continue his studies in physics and mathematics in 1946, graduating as a physicist in 1951. He then worked for the Siemens company in Heidenheim, Berlin and Munich, where he served on the company’s board until his retirement. During his career as a physicist he showed a particular interest in the exploration of space. In October 1957 he decided to leave the laity to aspire to the priesthood and to begin his theological formation at the Munich seminary.

His “favorite project”: The Schoenstatt Center in Munich

At the age of 10 he had his first encounter with Schoenstatt, as a student of the Pallottine School for youth, in Schoenstatt Vallendar. It was only for a few months, from Easter to the summer of 1934. After the war he met Schoenstatt again, he was able to listen to Father Kentenich’s conferences on different occasions, but it was through Father Alex Menningen that he found the way to the Movement and its spirituality.

Wherever he worked, he attracted people with similar ideas to him. An example of this was his time as a student in Darmstadt, where he formed a group of Schoenstatt university students. In 1948 he joined the Schoenstatt Youth Federation, of which he was a leader from 1954 to 1960. Also in Munich, from 1954 he contributed decisively with the foundation of a circle of leaders for the Schoenstatt Movement, and immediately he dedicated himself to the construction of a shrine and a new Schoenstatt center in that city, a favorite work, for which he felt co-responsible until the end of his life.

In 1959 Bodo Erhard decided not to continue on the path to the diocesan priesthood in the diocese of Munich, but to actively participate in the founding of a new community of Fathers, which was to replace the Pallottines as the inspiring community of the Schoenstatt Movement, due to the ecclesial controversy surrounding the Movement.

He finished his theological studies in Munich in 1961. Two years later he traveled to Milwaukee, United States, to be with Father Kentenich, who quickly conquered him so that, given his experience in different areas of his life, he would take leadership in the new institute. On September 8, 1964, he received his priestly ordination from Bishop Antonio José Plaza of Argentina, and after the foundation of the Institute of the Schoenstatt Fathers, he was its first Superior General from 1965 to 1974.

Construction of Mount Zion

As superior general of the community, Mount Sion, the international center of the Schoenstatt Fathers, was created with the construction of the Sion Shrine, the current Provincial House and the house of the Community of Schoenstatt Adoration Fathers. With the foundation of the community of the Adoration Fathers on Mount Sion, it allowed the Community of the Fathers to have the necessary spiritual depth for a priestly community strongly oriented to the apostolic task.

At the end of his term as Superior General, he served his community as Provincial Superior of Sion Province for another 12 years, from 1974 to 1986. After some time in the filial house of the community of the Fathers in Essen, he returned to Mount Sion, settling in the filial house of the Fathers in the House of Adoration to give himself to the service of prayer with his confreres in the Sion shrine. After a long period of leadership, he was happy to give up his last years of life especially to priestly service from the confessional and the altar.

More information:

Memorial service: Friday, December 18th at 2:00 p.m. in the Pilgrims’ Church, Vallendar-Schoenstatt, Germany

Prior online registration is required due to current health conditions.

https://www.schoenstatt.de/de/besucher-information/gottesdienstzeiten/anmeldung-pilgerkirche.htm

The funeral will take place at the cementery of the Schoenstatt Fathers at Mount Sion.

Download: Obituary in German (pdf document)

https://www.schoenstatt.de/de/uploads/2020-news/20201214Nachruf-PaterBodo-MariaErhard.pdf

Sending of condolences: Schoenstatt Fathers, Mount Sion 6, Provincial House, 56179 Vallendar, provinzsekretariat@schoenstatt-patres.de

Source: www.schoenstatt.de

July 14, 2020 By Sr. M. Cacilda Becker

What matters to me is the “canonization of truth”. Everything else is secondary for me at the first instance.

Father Joseph Kentenich was concerned not with the canonization of his person, but with the "canonization of truth":

find a useful pastoral to help people today, develop their personality, recognize their mission to the world, and use all God-given abilities to do so. Father Angel Strada got to know and appreciate the Schoenstatt founder in the last three years of his life. After that he was postulator in his beatification process for 20 years until 2017. In the interview, he comments on some questions that are currently moving people in the Schoenstatt family and beyond.

Father Strada, over the past 20 years as a postulator for the beatification, you have collected, ordered, translated and prepared documents for the process of Father Joseph Kentenich. Can you say something about the scope and also the content classification of these documents?

Father Kentenich had a long life and great creativity. He wrote and preached very much in many different countries. There are 32,000 documents in the beatification process that were scattered across different countries: letters, expert reports, writings, studies. Rome was asked if they had so much space for this amount of paper. They suggested that the process History Committee make a selection. It has worked for 8 years and compiled 8,000 documents, around 70,000 pages. Schoenstatt and external persons worked together in the History Commission.

Is the media talking about alleged moral misconduct by Father Joseph Kentenich, founder of Schoenstatt? What did you find in the files?

In the files viewed so far, there is not a single trace that would indicate a case of sexual abuse. If there is convincing evidence in the documents of the previous Secret Archives in Rome that clearly demonstrate abuse, then the Church must decide to end the beatification process. That will find our full support.

Do you find anything about abuse of power in the files?

What one finds are statements by a few sisters who felt that Father Kentenich treated them harshly, unfairly or misunderstood. These statements are to be taken seriously, but in a community of 1,500 members at the time, one cannot expect that everyone agrees with everything and feels understood.

The media claim that the alleged sexual abuse was the real reason for the exile of the founder. Was this reason ever communicated to Father Kentenich and to the movement?

There is not a single word about sexual abuse in the documents that are available to us and that we have shared with the beatification process. If there is anything about it in the new documents, which we do not yet know, the new History Commission will examine this critically.

How did Father Kentenich learn that he had to be exiled and what was the reason given to him?

There are various decrees by Visitator Tromp, the Holy Office and the General Superior of the Pallottines, each with different contents. According to the Holy Office, some developments in Schoenstatt had to be corrected. They said that this is not possible when Kentenich is there because he is “unteachable”. A document also takes up the claim of some bishops that Father Kentenich suffered “roof damage” when he was in the Dachau concentration camp. In the requested psychological report, the doctor appropriately attested: A person who comes back from the concentration camp with such work-force, with such a spirit, with such motivation is perfectly normal.

What documents of the Vatican are there in which Father Kentenich’s rehabilitation is pronounced and are these documents publicly available?

There is no document on this. The Holy Office had no practice of issuing annulment documents. There is only one document to repeal a decree against a Dutch woman, and only because of the pressure from the Dutch bishops. Henri de Lubac SJ, an important theologian of the time, also received no cancellation document. He took his “rehabilitation” from the fact that he was later appointed to the council theologian.

The rehabilitation of Father Kentenich can be seen from the following facts: he returns from Milwaukee to Rome and does everything with the knowledge of the Holy Office that was previously prohibited to him: e.g. He takes over the spiritual leadership of the Sisters of Mary and the Schoenstatt Movement again. On December 22, 1965, he received an audience with Pope Paul VI. The German bishops, who were asked individually by Bishop Hoeffner on the advice of Cardinal Antoniutti, agreed that he would come to Germany. They wish him many blessings and had a few words: hopefully he has calmed down. Cardinal Antoniutti received the positive answers from the German bishops from Bishop Hoeffner and gave Father Kentenich full freedom.

From December 1971, Cardinal Ottaviani, the prefect of the Holy Office, wrote a twelve-page document called “Memories of Father Kentenich” in which he asked for forgiveness and apologized for what had been done to Father Kentenich. His secretary, later Cardinal Agustoni, gave a very positive testimony about Father Kentenich.

A natural reaction from many members of the movement is: “Go to the archives in Rome and have a look at the files yourself.” Can you or the postulator, Father Eduardo Aguirre, simply not do this to check for yourself whether there are actually new facts, which weren’t already known?

Bishop Ackermann from Trier is in the process of setting up and appointing a History Commission to process the new documents and they will investigate the secret archive of Pius XII. Father Eduardo Aguirre had tried to gain access to the secret archive earlier this year, then Corona came and there was nothing he could do. He is currently in Rome and is looking for files.

The public is asking that all files be put online and thereby create transparency. Are there other documents that Schoenstatt could make available beyond what you know and what was handed over to the Church as a collection of files on the process of beatification?

No, there are no more. With good will and a lot of work, we researched documents in 120 civil and church archives in Germany and abroad. I really cannot imagine that there are other documents.

Now that the documents have been released for inspection in Rome, I hope that we will be able to view these documents soon, and not only those until 1958, but also the next 10 years until 1968, until the death of the founder.

The researcher, who got the upcoming requests to Father Kentenich rolling, names a group of eight sisters, among them the former Superior General, who would have passed on criticism toward Father Kentenich to Trier and Rome.

Yes that’s true. These letters are also part of these 8,000 documents that were passed on for the beatification process. There is also a letter from the Superior General to Pope Pius XII in which she writes that she has no doubt about the moral integrity of the founder, the question is whether a successor would also exercise the office in a morally perfect manner. She also expresses that it bothers her, that there are sisters who would idolize the founder. However, that would not come from the founder, but from the sisters.

Why was it important to Father Kentenich that he was a father for his communities?

He also knew from his own experience that people who have strong and healthy bonds with other people can form strong bonds with God. It was precisely this forwarding to God that was important to him: the development of strong ties to God was important to him for the Movement. And he has no doubt achieved this bond with many members.

The media claim that the “Nihil obstat”, the declaration of no objection, i.e. the prerequisite for the initiation of the beatification process, was issued only on the basis of the documents submitted by the applicant. How do you see this process?

A letter from the Vatican State Secretariat to the Bishop of Münster, Heinrich Tenhumberg, is rated as “Nihil Obstat”. It says: “After a thorough examination of your request by the relevant papal authorities, I would like to point out that the bishop of Trier, as the responsible local bishop, can exercise his authority in accordance with canon law and carry out the information process if he sees that the requirements are fulfilled.” In the following years there were discussions about responsibility between different Vatican authorities in this matter. On January 11, 1991, the Trier bishop, Dr. Hermann Joseph Spital, who asks again about the Nihil Obstat, receives from the Congregation for the Beatification and Canonization Processes the decision: “After another examination, we want to inform your excellence that the Holy See sees no reason why the beatification process of the servant of God Joseph Kentenich, cannot be opened.”

What did Father Kentenich think of the canonization of his person? Was he interested in it?

No, he was not concerned with the canonization of his person, but with the “canonization of truth”. He wrote in 1951: “Whether holiness or not, it doesn’t matter. It is a question of whether truth is a marketable prostitute or whether everyone is called to pull their chariot without exception. In the same way, P. Tromp made me aware of this beforehand: if I were to be relieved of my office now, I should expect to be canonized later. Many others felt the same way in a similar situation. My answer is the same: it depends on the canonization of truth. Everything else is secondary to me. ”

It is too personal to ask how you are dealing with the whole thing now. Does that affect your relationship with him?

If I can meet Father Kentenich in heaven in the mercy of God, I will be very happy. But then I have some questions for him. For example, I would ask him why he struck a hard tone in his conversations with Trier.

That doesn’t go well with completely different experiences that many people have had with him. There he is described as turned toward them, encouraging, in no way authoritarian, uplifting and very sensitive.

Yes, the boys with whom he started in the House of Studies saw him as a person who, like a mother, also took care of the small needs of everyday life.

In defense of his teaching and his cause…

… then he was hard, yes. But in contact with people, he was kind and interested and devoted. That’s how I experienced him.

So saints are people who are exemplary in certain areas, but who can also have mistakes?

Holiness does not mean flawlessness. Saint Peter denied Jesus. Saint Paul persecuted Christians. Francis of Assisi has led anything but a holy youth. … Only the angels can be without mistakes.

Thank you very much, Father Strada for the interview.

Interview: Claudia and Heinrich Brehm

www.schoenstatt.de

July 6, 2020 By Sr. M. Cacilda Becker

“Perhaps it is not always advisable to remain nobly silent!”

The publication of an article in a Catholic weekly newspaper in Germany brought up events from the 1950s that put both the founder of Schoenstatt and the community of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary in a bad light.

www.schoenstatt.de asked Sister M. Doria Schlickmann, author of several books about Father Josef Kentenich and a renowned expert on the history of Schoenstatt, to shed some light on the matter with some answers.

Sister Doria, the aforementioned article speaks of the fact that Father Kentenich was referred to as “Father”, “the Founder with absolute power, who is often equated with God, so much so that in many expressions and prayers it is not clearly understood whether they are addressed to God the Father or to the Founder himself.” Is this true? How do you explain this mixing up of God the Father and the Founder?

Ultimately, prayers can only be addressed to God. The experience of human transparencies of God’s love can make these prayers even more vivid and heartfelt. The word “father” for the founder is not unusual. Many communities also call their founder father. For many people, their image of God changed after they met Father Kentenich. With him it was also somehow surprising that men, young people, and married couples – without external stimulation and independently of one another – suddenly felt the need to call him father. This never was and is still never understood as competition with God.

How would you describe the relationship of the Sisters of Mary with Father Kentenich? How does he live in their community?

He is the founder, to whom the community owes its original character and – as one Pope once said – “its strong spirituality”. He has made unusual sacrifices for this community, not only in the willingness to lay down his life for it in Dachau, but also in the giving of his honor during and around the exile. The Visitator and the Holy Office wanted to completely separate the founder from the foundation. Perhaps this long-standing attempt even intensified the bond with the Founder. For us it is self-evident that he remained our spiritual father in eternity. He lives in our community through his rich spiritual heritage and we have a living experience of his intercessory power. For me he is a great example for the way I live my life: in his devotion to God and his great love for mankind. I am always impressed by his pedagogy and psychological empathy. It fascinates me how a person can inwardly take in, affirm and promote the most diverse kinds and types.

Father Kentenich was convinced that in order to develop their personality, people need strong attachments. What does attachment to a person do? Does it make him strong or does it render him weak? And how do the notes of the Visitator Sebastian Tromp SJ, who noted “that among the priests and the Sisters of Mary there are few secure personalities who have independent thinking and interior freedom”, fit in with this?

Basically, a healthy human bond is what makes strong, if it doesn’t degenerate into a blind dependence. Every child who knows that he or she is originally loved by his or her parents develops his or her personality, becomes strong, self-confident and gains a positive attitude towards life. However, this presupposes that parents, educators, those who bear the main responsibility in the bond are selfless, precisely because they are in some way an authority. A woman, it seems to me, is particularly sensitive to whether someone is selfless or wants something for himself, a women’s community even more so. A fellow Sister who worked for decades with the Founder once told me: “If we had felt the slightest trace in this direction (selfishness) with him (Father Kentenich), we would have withdrawn immediately.” What I was able to observe and research for decades was that many strong and inwardly free personalities in all the Schoenstatt communities have matured from the attachment to Father Kentenich, and it seems to me that they are still there today. For a number of these holy models in the history of Schoenstatt, the beatification processes are already underway in various countries.

Father Tromp may not have noticed that he frightened some Sisters very much by his authoritarian approach. The Sisters were not accustomed to such a style from the side of Father Kentenich. Moreover, the Visitator had already been adversely influenced against Father Kentenich in advance by a few Sisters of Mary, including our first Superior General. What Father Tromp did not see through or could not see through was that this Superior General saw the founder as a competition early on.

She meticulously collected unfavorable statements against him and sent them to the Visitator. You will find all this in more detail in my biography.

Father Tromp’s judgement that all the other Sisters and Fathers who disagreed with him were weak, insecure, and not independent in their thinking is, in my opinion, quite a misjudgment, which I explain to myself by the fact that he had no experience whatsoever with pastoral care for women. He was certainly an excellent professor of dogmatics, but here he was confronted with a completely different field. The history, expansion and development of the Schoenstatt Work throughout the world, which was carried independently by still young Sisters of Mary in foreign countries, proves the opposite.

Father Kentenich was sent into exile by the Church. What reasons did the Holy Office give to Father Kentenich and to the Schoenstatt Family?

I would remind you that it was not a practice of the HO, before Vatican II, to give reasons. In the most diverse decrees only the provisions are to be found. Likewise, the leaders in Schoenstatt did not know any reasons. Father General Turowski, during his term of office as General of the Pallottine Fathers, had asked several times about the reasons for Father Kentenich’s dismissal and exile, but to my knowledge, he had not received an answer.

Gradually, in the following years, rumors seeped through, more and more slanders became audible, fantasy lies that accused the founder of moral dishonesty. After about ten years of exile, Father Kentenich knew about all these accusations. When he therefore repeatedly asked for a legal trial against him, in order to be able to defend himself against the accusations and ever new suspicions, it was interpreted to him as disobedience. For this reason, in the early 1960s, he wrote a detailed statement regarding his person, but it was sent back to him unread. He should keep silent and carry his cross patiently. He was not given an opportunity to defend himself.

In another article, the author presents in a very derogatory way the religious practice of the child’s exam, which plays a role in your community. How is this rite to be understood and what is its meaning? Is it still practiced today?

Father Kentenich was always concerned with a vital, personal relationship with God and with the central core of our spirituality: being a child before God. The questions of the so-called child’s examination refer to our relationship with God as a child of God. That is why it uses the term “child,” and not “daughter”. Who do we belong to? God. What may God do with us? Anything! What are we before him? A little nothing, actually, and therefore his everything. This is a motif that runs through the entire history of Christian spirituality. God’s love for us is incomprehensibly great and personal, not simply a general reality. across the board. The word Father makes devotion to God personal, just as Jesus speaks to the Father in John’s Gospel: Just Father, … Beloved Father … and many other passages. It is a fundamentally personal conversation with the Father.

This devotion could find a concrete expression in the form of a question and answer dialogue with the founder. It had simply grown from life. But it is by no means a general custom or regularly recurring rite that every sister practiced or even had to practice. This was and is a free decision of the respective sister.

If a sister wishes, she can express this to the highest superiors of the community. But God is always the last addressee. Otherwise the whole thing would be an unworthy game. As it was presented in the publication, it is completely distorted.

And what about the question: To whom does the breast belong?

This is also very distorted and incorrectly reproduced in the media. Everyone who reads this must think: That is absurd!

This question related to a single case. The sister had a pronounced anxiety disorder with regard to her physical appearance and therefore convulsively tried to hide her feminine forms as far as possible. It must be remembered that the upbringing of religious girls at this time often led to sexual inhibition and prudery. Fr. Kentenich clearly made her aware of her obsession and wanted to free her from this compulsion. He made it clear to her that she is accepted by God just as she is.

The newspaper article describes your community from the point of view of the Visitator. How did the sisters experience the Visitator? What kind of person was he? How did he affect the sisters? What did the respective sisters say about him and his manner? How many sisters had he actually personally experienced and spoken to?

As the archive documents of our chronicle show, he became more than angry whenever a sister expressed a different opinion than he wanted to hear. He reacted in a violent and unrestrained manner, arbitrarily punished sisters and priests who contradicted him, decided on the smallest matters of the sisters and wanted to force them to take vows. He arranged everything in a way that the community was not used to at all. Most of the sisters and priests were not intimidated by him, and they expressed their opinions to him independently and courageously, even if they had many disadvantages.

What can the Schoenstatt Movement do now? How do you interpret this current process? What should Schoenstatt learn from it?

First of all, I believe that the misinterpretations and false accusations against Father Kentenich that have now been published almost force us to bring to light the injustice that Father Kentenich suffered over decades. Yes, what should Schoenstatt learn from this? Perhaps that it is not always advisable to be nobly silent.

Interview: Heinrich Brehm, PressOffice Schönstatt

June 25, 2020 By Sr. M. Cacilda Becker

Around which center does humanity revolve?

By Father Heinrich Walter

In some evaluation of the corona crisis, there is now even talk of a turn of an era into which we are being led. This is a reminder of the Copernican turning point, when Copernicus completely changed the world view. Then it was recognised that it is not the sun that orbits the earth, but the other way round. This realization coincided with a slow change in the way people thought and acted.

Around which center does humanity revolve? Our global society today revolves around the market of goods. Supply and demand determine the dynamics. We have moved to the side of efficiency and paid less attention to stability. Everything revolves around numbers and quotas. The ultimate goal is growth. This is often the case in the Church, even in our communities. How many are we? How much do we own? What can we do to become larger?

And then the little virus came and stopped this dynamic for the time being. The center of interest shifted in a few weeks and this happened around the globe. The focus shifted to helpfulness, consideration, saving human lives, including those in nursing homes. The media showed pictures of co-responsibility and appreciation of the professions that suddenly became relevant, even to the point of garbage collection.

The society began to circle more and more around people. Parts of the global humanity was unprecedentedly moved by this centering on human life.

And then the question became: What is man? How free is man? May this freedom be limited in order to save others? What does the dignity of the human being include? And all over the world a completely new kind of bond was emerging, connected between the strata of society, between previously unknown neighbours on the street. In the great need, the preservation of the market was relativized in favor of the human being. Around which center do we circle?

In the time of need, powerlessness became apparent, every week a new one, as it is now with the new outbreaks of the virus. Is there a second wave coming? It cannot be dealt with as we had always believed: Yes we can! Insecurity and fear were spreading. Where to put these fears? The texts of the Scriptures speak of a caring God: “Fear not … all the hair on your head is numbered!” There is also talk of grace. Grace is God’s promise that we are wanted, accepted and at home.

We owe ourselves to a creator who is a personal God and looks at each one of us in love. As Christians we are invited to circle around God. Our forms of society, our free market economy, our networked world of unlimited possibilities, all this is not the middle, it is not the goal. All of this is only healthy and will only develop in a healthy way if it revolves around the center, which is not what we do, but around a center that is given to us. Everything is only entrusted to us by God, the creator, who is life. In Jesus Christ this center has been given a human face. In his death and resurrection we are redeemed from our eternal circle around ourselves.

In the Chapel of Grace in Schoenstatt Mary is at work. Her Shrine is for us like a school of circling around the God of life. When we attach ourselves to her, she leads us into this dynamic of circling around God with our life, work, worries and hopes.