New Schoenstatt, Argentina: The Father's Shrine - Part III
Next January 20th, Argentina will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the blessing of the Father’s Shrine, its national Shrine.
Panorama
The founder was not acknowledged by his own father. That thorn in his flesh remained with him all his life. His bleeding wound was healed by the warm maternal hands of Mary Most Holy. And it was precisely that wound, an open door for a charismatic paternity that embraced people of all ages, cultural backgrounds, and states of life.
This charismatic paternity which organically bonds the natural and the supernatural, remained engraved in the souls of those who experienced it in their journeys after Dachau. It was also engraved in the foundation stone of the first Schoenstatt Shrine in Argentina:
“This Shrine has to be a guarantee and pledge for all times that the paternal principle will be recognized in the Church and in the world and that the Kingdom of the Father -God- will extend triumphantly. At the same time, it must be a symbol of paternal love and filial fidelity”.
Father’s Shrine, where did you get your name?
Since it is a Shrine dedicated to the Blessed Mother, under the title of Schoenstatt, there is no doubt that it is a Marian Shrine, but since it is strongly marked by the seal of the paternal, it acquired the title of Father’s Shrine.
The Father is logically, primarily, the Father God.
In 1947, when Schoenstatt’s founder arrived in South America, he founded three provinces among the first missionaries of the community of the Sisters of Mary that he had sent before the Second World War. Providentially, Brazil was associated to Christ, Chile to the Holy Spirit and the area of Argentina and Uruguay to God the Father, forming among the three an “Assistance of the Holy Trinity”. The patricentric seal that marked this third province was expressed in many different ways, one of them was the placing of the Father Symbol in a Schoenstatt Shrine for the first time – 1948: Shrine of Nueva Helvecia, Uruguay, the second: 1952, New Schoenstatt, Argentina-.
The Blessed Mother, whirlpool that leads us to the Father
When placing the symbol of the Father God in the Shrine of New Schoenstatt, Father Joseph Kentenich expressed:
“The Blessed Mother is not only a whirlpool that leads us to Christ, but also towards the Father. The Mother and the Son have only one task: to lead those entrusted to them to the Father. Here we have the great symbolism before our eyes. Certainly, we, as the Province of the Father, have had from the beginning the task of bringing a patricentric current to the Family, to the world and to our time” – March 19, 1952.
The Father in heaven needs the fathers on earth
We know that the Person of God the Father did not become incarnate. We know him through Jesus Christ. Regarding this the founder told us, when he placed the symbol of God the Father in the Shrine of New Schoenstatt:
“In our simple way of thinking, which always sees nature and grace as a whole, we see how God takes care that on our way we find reflections of God the Father. If the Blessed Mother wants to create a profound worldwide renewal from her Shrines, then she must also see to it that those reflections of God the Father – the human father as a reflection of the eternal Father – are once again the safe place here on earth”.
For this reason, every paternal or maternal figure: the father and mother in their family, the authority in a company or in a country, will always be a representative of God, who ultimately brings together all fatherhood in heaven and on earth. The founder concludes with these words:
“Millions and millions of men have no idea of the paternal traits of God because they have never perceived the reflection of this God, these paternal traits, in their human father. You know how deeply encouraged I have felt to sacrifice everything so that this order of God’s salvation might become a reality…”.
On May 17, 2020, Pope Francis concurred with these words, “Let us ask the Holy Spirit to remind us always, always, of this access to the Father; to remind us that we have a Father, and to this civilization that has deep feelings of orphanhood, grant the grace to rediscover the Father, the Father who gives meaning to all life and makes of humankind, one family.”
This is precisely the mission that the Blessed Mother wishes to unfold from this throne of grace located in Argentina.
An emblematic Shrine in the history of Schoenstatt, witness of struggles that made it strong, bastion of a paternity that embraces heaven and earth.
Jubilee of the National Schoenstatt Shrine in Argentina
The Father’s Shrine was blessed by Father Joseph Kentenich on January 20, 1952. Today it is about to celebrate its 70th anniversary. New Schoenstatt, in the town of Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires, where this National Schoenstatt Shrine is located, will be the site of the celebrations, which will take place from January 18-20, 2022. More information will be available at https://www.facebook.com/nuevoschoenstatt.
