As Father Kentenich always did, he analyzed the signs of the time, the difficulties and the worries, and he prayed to know what God wanted with all of this. He realized the difficulty, which there was in general, in relating faith and daily life, that is, in maintaining a balance between attachment to God, to one’s neighbor, and to all created things.

It is part of the fundamental experience of each human being, of having bonds within a family, as a means for the development of each unique personality. God uses this same path to come to us and for each person to achieve a personal and deep bond with him.

Father Kentenich, following the teachings of  Jesus, points to being a child before God as the ideal and way of life for the Christian. He shows Mary as the one whose mission is to educate those who entrust themselves to her to live the filiality, received in Baptism, to a heroic degree. An attitude of filial surrender, in the light of faith, sees God behind every event – even the most difficult ones – and seeks in everything to do his will, always for love of the Father. Jesus is the model of a beloved and heroic Son who went to the cross for love of his Father.

This time of so many discoveries and so much progress needs childlikness. Being a child is a necessity for the people of today who are facing so many adversities!

Despite being part of a world network of communication, connected, but still separated and distant, more and more the human being feels alone in the world. Modern persons often lack a nest experience that gives security. It is also true that the deterioration of the family nucleus and the loss of strong relationships make the experience of childlikness more difficult. Usually the experience with the supernatural world is based on the experiences of relationships in daily life, especially with a father and a mother, siblings, and friends.

 

That is why we crown the Mother of God as Queen of Heroic Childlikeness, because she wants to help us cultivate even more healthy bonds to people, places, and ideas. We need to lead people to the Mother of God, so that in her arms, they reinforce their learning, what it is to be a child. This is what the Schoenstatt Movement tries to do in the covenant of love with the Mother Thrice Admirable.

 

As seven decades ago, the coronation offered by Father Kentenich is current today. In our time, in today’s difficulties, a childish childlikness is not the way. It is necessary to be guided by the Holy Spirit to the heroism of faith and filial love for God. Only those who are profoundly children before God have the strength and security today to prove the faith and apply it in daily life as mature Christians, as protagonists of this necessary social transformation. Mother Thrice Admirable must be, even more today, our Queen of Heroic Childlikeness. Let us allow ourselves to be educated by her!

 

Sr. M. Rosequiel Fávero and Sr. M. Nilza P. da Silva