What gift can be given to a person who is in heaven? What could bring joy to someone who dedicated his life to the Schoenstatt Work? In gratitude for the 75th anniversary of the founding of the International Schoenstatt Family Federation, this community in Brazil is giving something meaningful and profound: the Child’s Covenant with our Father and Founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, from all the Perpetual Courses. This took place on October 18, together with the celebration of the 111th anniversary of the Covenant of Love.
“It was a great day for the Family Federation in Brazil and also for our international community, for the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement and for the Holy Church, because by sealing the Child’s Covenant with our Father and Founder, we took an important step in deepening our Covenant of Love with the Blessed Mother,” celebrate Romulo and Marcia Romanato, leaders of the Family Federation in Brazil.
Gathered before the statue of our Father and Founder in the Shrines of Atibaia, Brasília, Londrina, Curitiba, Santa María, and Porto Alegre, the 22 Perpetual Courses experienced a memorable moment of joy: some Courses sealed and others renewed their commitment to childlikeness and attachment to our Father and Founder. As a symbol of this Child’s Covenant, each person received a Unity Cross, committing themselves to the Founder’s mission.
Monthly formation in preparation for the big day
The preparation for this unforgettable moment took place online from April to October, focusing on fundamental topics to prepare the children’s hearts and thus strengthen this current of life and bond with our Father and Founder, deepening our immersion in his charism and enabling us to serve the Church better.
The Family Federation also seeks to achieve its ideal as a community through a deep attachment to the person, work, and mission of Father Joseph Kentenich, since we are convinced that his charism is a gift from the Holy Spirit to enrich the Church.
The contents of the formation deepened our knowledge and reflection on his fatherhood, his charism, the way in which God led the Schoenstatt Work in union with him, and the goal of achieving heroic filiality before God the Father. This allowed us to prepare ourselves both intellectually and voluntarily for this dedication.
There are three ways to guarantee our bond with our Father and Founder, according to Fr. Alex Menningen, his faithful follower, in a conference at the October 1968 Congress:
Intelligence seeks to penetrate ever more deeply into the Founder’s spirituality. Together with him, we aim to evaluate the problems of the times according to God’s vision. This can sometimes be difficult for us because, infected by the spirit of the times, we see things superficially and want to resolve them quickly. Being connected to the Father means, like him, being attentive to the signs of the times and responding from a perspective of faith. This requires our intelligence to penetrate ever more deeply into the words and teachings of the Founder, to analyze, reflect on, understand, and apply them in our lives.
The will takes on the Founder’s goals and transforms them into a personal mission. The deeper the union of the will with the Father of the Schoenstatt Family, the more protected we will be against the impulses that lead us to act without principles, and the more we will strive to remain faithful to him in co-responsible obedience.
However, Fr. Menningen warns us that it is not enough to unite our intelligence and will if we do not also join our hearts, that is, through love. We need to want to know him, to esteem him, and finally to love him as our spiritual father, who left us the richness of Schoenstatt spirituality as our inheritance and as a mission to carry out in the service of the Church.
The bond with his person and his charism
It is also important to note that there are different degrees of connection with the Founder, and all are important because it is God who guides these connections. As a community of leaders, the Family Federation aspires to a bond of filial love because it is called to participate in its charism as leaders.
Finally —and most importantly —we need to rely on God’s grace. No one can be forced to open themselves to it, and we must be willing to receive it as a gift and a mission.
Luiz Antonio Machado, together with his wife Cleonice, sealed the Filial Covenant at the Tabor Magnificat Shrine in Curitiba, and he shares: “For those who have never had the opportunity to know or live with a father figure, it is very difficult to call anyone other than God ‘father’. Therefore, sealing the Child’s Covenant with the Father and Founder represents overcoming a personal barrier that caused me anguish, despite humbly recognizing that the Founder was an instrument used by the MTA to win hearts for her beloved Son, Jesus Christ. By the will of the MTA and by Divine Grace, at some point in my journey with the Family Federation, my heart was deeply moved. I was freed from my emotional blindness and, with serenity, today I can affirm: Fr. Joseph Kentenich is my ‘dad’.”
For Cleber and Marilsa Lima, from Londrina: “Sealing the Child’s Covenant with the Founder goes far beyond accepting Fr. Kentenich as the Founder of the Work to which we belong and recognizing his total dedication to this Work. For us, it is the certainty that we have a father who cared for each of his spiritual children on earth in a unique way and who, in heaven, intercedes for each of us before the good God. It is also an impulse to strive for holiness by following his examples and teachings. This filial relationship with the Father and Founder leads us to be closer to God and to recognize his messages in everyday things and to intensify our practical faith in Divine Providence.”
We believe that we could not offer a better gift to our dear and beloved Father and Founder for the jubilee of the founding of the Family Federation. May we always be faithful to this sealed Child’s Covenant, to walk the path of childlike holiness that Schoenstatt proposes to us, and to give ourselves, full of confidence, to the fatherly love of God who guides our lives through secondary causes. May our Father and Founder continue to intercede for and bless our Community.
Translation: Sr. M. Lourdes Macías
