Enthronement of the Blessed Mother in a Guayaquil parish

The Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign of Guayaquil

The Schoenstatt Rosary Campaign of Guayaquil, Ecuador, has much to be grateful to our Mother and Queen. Her faithfulness far exceeds our simple commitment.

After a harsh year such as 2020, our Queen was set in motion, and starting in May of this year, a month dedicated to Her, the missionaries offered Father Alfonso Avilés, St. Albert the Great’s parish priest, to take over praying the rosary before the Blessed Sacrament exposed every Thursday, before the Holy Mass.

Faithful missionaries offer to pray the Rosary

This commitment continued after the month of May, and the missionaries faithfully kept their offer every Thursday. In June, Sister Norma, together with the coordinator of the Rosary Campaign in Villa Club, asked Father Alfonso’s authorization to initiate a more ample mission in which all the parishioners who wanted to receive the visit of the Pilgrim MTA would be invited. Ninety families signed up and received her during August and September.

Father Alfonso agreed to have our MTA enthroned in his parish, and that is why the month of October, mission month, was chosen to give the Blessed Mother her throne. We prepared ourselves financially, to prepare a beautiful frame and altarpiece for Mary, and more importantly, spiritually with our Capital of Grace. By our faithful prayer of the rosary every Thursday and a beautiful novena offered to the image of the Blessed Mother that would be enthroned presiding from the altar, this spiritual preparation took place.

On Saturday, October 23rd, the Blessed Mother’s image, beautifully decorated with flowers and lilies, arrived at the Schoenstatt Shrine in Ciudad Celeste to be filled with graces, prior to her enthronement during the Sunday Mass on October 24th at 12:30 p.m. That Saturday we gathered in the Shrine in person and virtually to pray the Rosary for our country, as part of the marathon organized by the Rosary Campaign. It was a wonderful moment in which we asked the Blessed Mother through songs and prayers to reign from her new throne of grace in St. Albert the Great Parish.

On Sunday, October 24, the Queen was transported in a caravan from the Shrine to the parish. About 10 vehicles went in a procession following the Queen’s carriage, from where she was extending her blessing on our streets and communities. Upon arriving at the parish, the Blessed Mother entered along with some Rosary Campaign representatives, followed by the apostles of Mary carrying roses to decorate the altar where the Holy Mass would be offered, presided by Father Alfonso Avilés and accompanied by Fathers Pablo and Claudio of the Schoenstatt Fathers.

At the end of the Mass, the image was taken to the place of enthronement, and beginning with the Rosary Campaign Hymn, we sang and celebrated that our Mother had a new throne from where she will distribute her graces to all the parishioners of Saint Albert the Great parish.

This way our determination of serving the Church, of being an integral part of her, of fulfilling our common mission, has been made alive, and we can live from deep within our hearts the motto of this Jubilee Year of the Family in Ecuador: “Shrine, you are mission.”

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