On April 2, Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most important week of our Church, news arrived of the theft of the Unity Cross from the Shrine of Bellavista, in Chile.
The Unity Cross of Bellavista is the first replica, given by the Stuttgart Region (Germany) of the Schoenstatt Ladies to the Bellavista Shrine. This Cross was enthroned on March 19, 1969, by Eugenia Mahringer, then Superior of the Stuttgart Region of the Schoenstatt Ladies.
The Original Unity Cross is in the Schoenstatt Shrine in Stuttgart, Germany. It was presented to the Schoenstatt Ladies in that region by Father Kentenich after he returned from exile.
May 31st: What it means for Schoenstatt
The Shrine of Bellavista is the bearer of a very special grace and mission within the Schoenstatt Work, which is the 31st of May.
On this day, our Father and Founder placed on the altar of the Bellavista Shrine in Chile the letter responding to the Bishop of Trier regarding some pending questions to be resolved in and about Schoenstatt. This day became known as the 3rd historic milestone in Schoenstatt’s history because of its repercussion and the divine intervention at that moment. It is the day of the mission!
Our Father and Founder came to America to seek allies “to pull Mary’s chariot of triumph”. He came to launch a crusade of thinking, loving and living organically, and this crusade consists of
– Cultivating attachments
– Overcoming the spirit of the times (mechanistic thinking)
– Becoming the heart of the Church, so that the Church can become the soul of the world.
– Proclaiming Mary’s mission as a constant and official companion and collaborator with Christ in the Work of Redemption.
In Mary we have the visionary ideal of this spirituality
Mary harmonizes nature and grace, she overcomes anthropological heresies, She conquers the mechanicism that separates the human from the divine, faith from life, authority from obedience. She is the answer to today’s individual who has lost the ability to sustain firmly the relationship between the natural and the supernatural, and is incapable of making serious supernatural decisions, of being coherent with what he thinks, with what he lives, with what he loves.
In this context, some Chilean seminarians of the Pallotine Fathers, searching for their generational ideal, had the desire to give a crucifix to the Shrine of Bellavista that would express their image of Christ as priest of the Covenant of Love with Mary. They based this idea of a crucifix in the light of the original image of Christ that the founder had taught them, and thus forged this ideal into a cross, the Unity Cross.
“In the plans of the eternal God there is no image of Mary that is separate from Christ; She was created only for Him and through Him. In the same way, in the plan of eternity, there is no image of Christ separated from Mary. (Fr. Joseph Kentenich, 1956)
We join the Bellavista Family and all Schoenstatt children throughout the world in prayer and in a spirit of atonement for this dreadful incident.
PRAYER
O Holy Cross, I fall before you
and sing to you ardent hymns of thanks and jubilation:
On you our Lord completed the work
which made us children of God.
I want to plant you deeply in my joyous heart
and constantly give you all my love;
my life’s hope is built on you,
my crucified Lord, and on your Bride.
Let me proclaim you both to those around me,
daring my life’s battle for you each day.
Then your kingdom will be victorious everywhere
and extend its boundaries to the ends of the universe.
Let me present the cross and the picture of Mary
to the nations as the sign of redemption
so that the two who stand as one in the Father’s plan of love
may never be divided.
May Schoenstatt always be your loyal instrument,
inscribing your names, together, into human hearts,
that Satan’s realm may truly be destroyed
and in the Holy Spirit the Father’s glory be increased.
Amen.
*Ana Christina Melquiades, Schoenstatt’s Ladies Institute
Source: Schoenstatt Brasil
