“Let us glow like flames of fire and joyfully go forth to the nations, giving witness to redemption and jubilantly leading all people to the Triune God” (Father Kentenich – Heavenwards 12).
In this Jubilee Year of Hope, in which the Church invites every Christian to renew their trust in God the Father’s plan of love, we want to reflect on the perpetual spirit of the Covenant of Love with Mary. This consecration gave rise to the International Schoenstatt Work.
Based on the Covenant of Love of 1914, Father Joseph Kentenich, Founder of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement, testifies to the spirit that moved him in each historical milestone of his Work and invites us to update this spirit today, with the commitment to project it to future generations.
The founder in the light, confidence, strength, and victoriousness of the Covenant of Love
The Covenant of Love must be lived out in the style of the Founder.
Attentive to the signs of the times, Father Kentenich outlined in his heart the desire to create a new man and a new community, capable of facing challenges. To fulfill this desire, he gave himself completely to Jesus, as an instrument in the hands of the Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt.
According to our Founder, the closer we get to the Blessed Mother, moved by the spirit of prayer, trust, faith in Providence, self-giving, self-giving, love, that is, moved by the Covenant of Love, the closer we will be to realizing in ourselves the ideal of the ‘new man’ and, in the people around us, the ideal of the ‘new community’, our contribution to building the Covenant Culture.
Throughout his life, Father Kentenich remained rooted in God, in the world of the Covenant of Love, with every fiber of his heart. He let himself be led by the divine light, abandoned himself in trust in God and his purposes, felt driven by the strength from on high, and was filled with joy at the certainty of the heavenly Father’s victory.
Through his charism, Father Kentenich leads people to the Blessed Mother and the Holy Trinity. His love for the Church is manifest in every action.
Your Covenant always our mission
Through the Covenant of Love, we are intertwined in union with Mary and the Founder. Our Founder’s mission is also ours.
Like Father Kentenich, let us entrust to Mary and her Son, Jesus Christ, our personal, family, and community life all the difficulties, sufferings, decisions to be made, and situations that often place us in inner conflict. The smallness of the instrument and the difficulties cannot shake our awareness of our mission. Let us entrust ourselves and the future to God’s guidance!
In this modern age where a culture that distances itself from God predominates, let us allow ourselves to be ignited by the flames of the fire of mission, to bring the light, confidence, strength, and victoriousness of the Covenant of Love to the world, with new ardor, with hope, confident in God’s surprises and full of joy.
The Covenant of Love with Mary lived faithfully, propels us further towards the mission. The new man will emerge!
Translation: Kathleen Colunga
