April 15, 2019
Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,
We are in the middle of Holy Week! It began on Palm Sunday when Jesus upon his entry to Jerusalem was hailed by an overjoyed crowd crying “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” (Mt 21:9) Within five days, the scene changed dramatically. The same crowd cried out, “Crucify him!” (Mk 15:13). What happened? Why the sudden deviation in the people’s relationship to Jesus?
Father Kentenich tells us what we know and may have painfully experienced already: “Those who praise us today, will crucify us tomorrow.” How devastating peer pressure can be. How unfree it can make us, sometimes even without us being aware of it. The individual characters Jesus encounters during his last week before his death also tell us a story. Most of his friends, including the twelve, abandoned him mostly out of fear. Very few persevered beneath the cross. And we have to ask ourselves, where do I stand?
The paschal mystery which we are about to celebrate, invites us to become Easter people. We are to become deeply supernatural persons after the example of the Blessed Mother, who even under the cross, at the darkest moment, believed confidently that suffering and death are not the end. There is a whole new dimension of life and reality that lies beyond Good Friday that becomes a never-ending source of hope and confidence for us.
If the walls of our Confidentia Shrine could speak, we would know of the countless experiences of inner transformation that have been worked through the transforming grace mediated by our covenant queen over the past sixty years. One stands for many others. The parents of a young man from the Valley who faced some jail time were deeply distraught. They and their friends prayed continuously for the conversion of the youth. Without his parents’ knowledge this young man found his way to the Confidentia Shrine where he prayed for a long time. He returned home a changed person telling all who wanted to hear it: the Blessed Mother has embraced me, and I will change. And he did, to this day!
May we all experience the loving embrace of our Confidentia Queen and become Easter people,
The Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary
- The Shrine is open from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
- Restrooms are open
Our store is open during the following hours
- Tuesday through Sunday
- 10:30 am – 12:00 noon
- 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
- 4:00 pm- 5:00 pm
- On Mondays the store is closed!
For more information for the use of the house, please contact the new administrator of our retreat center:
- Sr. M. Jacinta Brunner by email: houseschoenstattlamar@gmail.com or by cell phone: 361-695-0677.
- Store number: 361-729-7638
- Please note:
- the number 361-729-1868 is not yet a functioning number for our house, but unfortunately it still appears on most caller id’s. If you want to reach us by land phone, it is necessary to use the number 361-729-2019.
“Thanks, a thousand thanks to you, to God shall be now and for all eternity.”
Fr. Kentenich
