Sister Mattia booked a flight to Milwaukee at the end of her physics studies to meet Father Kentenich in person. After the first meeting, she wrote in her diary: “The photos do not reflect an inner beauty shining through. Something of sovereign nobility”.
She came with the purpose of not letting herself be “enveloped” by such a famous personality and instead met someone “who did not want to envelop me at all. But something in his personality put an end to my addiction to criticism.”
She travelled to Milwaukee five times before becoming a Sister of Mary. “The decision to become a Sister of Mary was absolutely not in my mind at that time. I wanted to get to know Schoenstatt more deeply, as a spirituality by which the world is renewed religiously and morally.” The fact that she wanted to follow this path had a lot to do with Father Kentenich: “Once I was walking down Wisconsin Avenue, I will never forget it! I was praying the rosary and had just reached the Our Father prayer. A wave of warm joy surged inside me: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ Now I do have an idea of what it is like to have a Father in heaven.”
Regarding the accusations against Father Kentenich, Sister M. Mattia has some unequivocal words: “I was shocked and said: ‘How can such a wild fantasy arise? I would never have dared to express something like that, which seems to me to be absolutely out of place”. An expert report by a psychologist from the University of Würzburg describes Father Kentenich’s mental competence as follows: “The personality diagnostic instruments show the figure of an extremely independent, original, mature and orderly person of considerable energy. Kentenich is extremely rare and atypical for the present time”.
