They will participate in the International Congress of the Schoenstatt Family Movement, CIOF, which will take place from May 4th to 7th in Asuncion. They will have celebrations in the Youth Shrine, in the capital city, as well as in the Shrine of Tuparendá, one hour away from Asunción.

Families from 17 countries will participate: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Spain, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and the United States.

Finding answers is our challenge

With lots of work and in a rush due to the approaching Congress, the coordinators of the event, Graciela and Beltrán Macchi, describe how they are living this stage:

“Excited and with a pounding heart, we are arranging the final details so that our dear visiting brothers and sisters will find, in our Guarani land the warm and fraternal embrace of the Schoenstatt Family of Paraguay.”

They also mention their great longing for this encounter: “From the heart of America, we want to promote connections to generate, strengthen and support moments that favor reflection and dialogue. We hope that together we can find answers and face the challenges that the family is facing today: the risks in the education of children, in the strengthening of the faith, the social problems that have led families to live distressing situations of exclusion, of existential and cultural periphery that threaten their fundamental values”.

In summary, for Graciela and Beltrán, “finding these answers is the challenge of CIOF Paraguay 2023“.

It will be a gathering of hearts

Daniela and Antonio Peralta, also from the organizing team, commented that this congress, “is a great gift from God for the Schoenstatt Family of Paraguay. And they add: “Faithful to the ideal that the Lord has given us, to be ‘Nation of God, Heart of America’, we want to welcome the families with the warmth that characterizes our people”.

The event is taking place -the couple shares- after years of hard work and much preparation: “It is an enormous opportunity and a challenge, which led us to work and prepare for five years as a team, postponing twice the scheduled date, due to a pandemic that no one expected.  There were many offerings to the capital of grace”.

Precisely because of this, Daniela and Antonio express, “it is an opportunity for hearts to meet, to recognize ourselves as a single family, a single Work of Families, to dialogue on topics that interest us, that question and challenge us, also sharing the answers that we offer to these challenges of our time, generating synergies between the different communities and countries.”

Objectives of CIOF Paraguay

The Schoenstatt Family Movement is formed by three communities of couples and children: League, Federation and Institute of Families. In view of this, the first objective of the Congress is to promote a warm and family-like experience of personal and life encounters from the different communities of the Work.Another objective of the meeting is to take the charism of Father Joseph Kentenich to the Church and the world, as missionary leaders who forge holy families. The goal is also to develop concrete proposals in response to the challenges of the present time.

Marian Pedagogy with the spirituality of Father Kentenich

The International Congress of the Schoenstatt Movement is a space of connection between the different communities of the Family Movement. Its purpose is to reflect and exchange experiences, formation materials, projects and apostolates. It is about uniting criteria and inspiring, from the spirituality of Father Joseph Kentenich, a Marian pedagogy of marriage and the family that proposes courses of action in response to the challenges of the times. The last congress was held in 2017 in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Website: CIOF – Paraguay – 2023

CIOF - EN