Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

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November 15, 2019

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

Almost a month has gone by since many of us gathered to celebrate the 60th anniversary of this shrine! What a glorious day it was! People came from all over Texas and beyond to give thanks to the Triune God for the gift of Schoenstatt and for the first Schoenstatt Shrine on Texan soil. We prayed, played, enjoyed a delicious meal, and visited with one another just like family. And we truly are a family united in the covenant of love. This was a reality many shared with us during the day as well as in their messages afterwards. We sisters give thanks to all who came and continue coming to the shrine and we thank especially for the countless volunteers and benefactors who made the jubilee an unforgettable blessed feast.

Shortly before the shrine jubilee, the delegates of the league branches gathered in the shadow of the Confidentia Shrine for a weekend of sharing, learning, and discerning. As always, this convention aimed at finding the motto which will guide the Texas Schoenstatt Family throughout the coming year.  The delegates took their responsibility seriously. They were inspired by the fact that next year we will commemorate the centennial of the Apostolic League of Schoenstatt and also the centennial of the first women joining Schoenstatt. After a few hours of deliberations in small group discussions and a plenary session, the core team, consisting of a representative from each of the league branches met after an hour of adoration to formulate the motto which reads: Joyful Apostles, Living the Covenant!

Throughout the year we will ponder different aspects of this beautiful motto; so please stay tuned! For now, please don’t forget to honor our founder, Father Joseph Kentenich whose birthday we will celebrate tomorrow with a sign of gratitude for having been the first joyful apostle to live the covenant of love!

Happy Thanksgiving to y’all,

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

Gathering with the International Schoenstatt Family

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October 15, 2019

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

In just a few days, on October 18, we will gather with the international Schoenstatt Family to renew our covenant of love with our Mother Thrice Admirable, Queen, and Victress of Schoenstatt. Most of us will do so in the home shrine or with the local Schoenstatt Family at a wayside shrine. Some of us have the privilege to be close to a daughter shrine. Wherever we will be, the Blessed Mother, our covenant partner is awaiting us.

It may be a few months or more than fifty years since we sealed our covenant of love with her in the shrine and if we are sincerely living out of this relationship, then we surely have a story to tell of the countless nudges, signs of consolation, and encouragement we have received. Father Kentenich liked to talk about “the covenant of love with one another and among one another”. He also interpreted the relationship between the Schoenstatt Family and the Church as a covenant of love. Dilexit Ecclesiam, Beacon on the New Shore! Every day anew, our annual motto encourages us to love the Church as Father Kentenich did, and by our witness light the way for our darkened world.

In only four days, on Saturday, October 19, 2019, we will gather to celebrate the sixty years of our MTA, our Queen of Confidence’s faithfulness, to her shrine and the Texas Schoenstatt Family. This first Schoenstatt Shrine on Texan soil was built with countless contributions to the capital of grace and the sure confidence that she wanted to settle here and dispense abundant graces.

“With certainty, the key to unlock the heart of the Blessed Mother is confidence.” These words of Father Kentenich can be experienced daily in our shrine. Please come and join us in thanking the Triune God for the gift of our shrine and the covenant of love.

Looking forward to welcoming you!

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

Commemorating our father and founder, Father Joseph Kentenich

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September 15, 2019

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

Today we commemorate the day when our father and founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, entered eternity. On Sunday, September 15, 1968, the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, his life was completed after having celebrated his first holy Mass in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Schoenstatt, Germany. He was almost 83 years old; yet he had been as busy as a man in his prime with travels, meetings, and correspondence with his worldwide Schoenstatt Family. He had even planned to come to Texas. We, today, can hardly imagine the sorrow his death caused in the hearts of his followers.

In 1967, he sent a gift to the Texas Schoenstatt family. It is a unique image of God, the Father, and a harbinger, as it were, of the visit of Father Kentenich.  It reminds us that in God, Father Kentenich remains with us and is present in his new mode of existence. We are grateful for this gift and legacy of our father and founder which has found its permanent place in the Confidentia Shrine.

The Father Eye is also prominently displayed on the logo. It invites everyone to join us for the 60th anniversary of the Confidentia Shrine on October 19.

Numerous people have confidently entrusted their prayer intentions to the intercession of Father Kentenich. His cause for beatification is in process and in need of a miracle in order to be completed. We encourage you to pray one of the novenas featuring Father Kentenich.

Your Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

Celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven

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August 15, 2019

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven. This youngest dogma of the Catholic Church, proclaimed on November 1, 1950, concludes the Church’s teaching on Mary: At the end of her earthly pilgrimage, God brought her home into eternity. Her being in heaven with body and soul is a unique gift of God’s grace, but it is also due to her vocation and the loyalty by which she lived each it each day of her life.

At the same time, the Blessed Mother’s assumption marks a new beginning for her. Mary is now in eternal life. She is enveloped by the joy and blessedness that comes from the encounter with God and with all who are in communion with this loving God. Being in heaven doesn’t mean that our earthly work is done. Quite the contrary, Mary’s mission can now assume its universal dimensions: “Taken up to heaven”–as Vatican II reminds us–“she did not lay aside her salvific duty … By her maternal love she cares for the brethren of her son who still journey on earth.” This is what we experience when we visit the Confidentia Shrine. Our Mother and Queen welcomes us, offers us graces of home, inner transformation, and mission zeal. The many petitions in the jar are a silent but eloquent witness that Our Lady, since her assumption into heaven is now able to exercise fully her motherhood in the order of grace, without interruption. Her powerful intercession at the throne of God gives us confidence in her. Many of us have experienced this at numerous times.

But let us not forget to ask her today especially for the grace to one day be united with her in heaven. In light of our ultimate home, may we also grow in our understanding that some of our needs and intentions are answered contrary to our expectations so we can understand better the transience of all earthly things. In Heavenwards, Father Kentenich teaches us to pray:

Teach me to live each day so that my dying
becomes easy, as befits an heir of heaven.
Teach me to judge myself each night in such a way
that after death I may see you and God.

May our Confidentia Queen continue to accompany us on our earthly pilgrimage and increase our longing for our heavenly home.

Happy and blessed feast day,

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

New Banner on Our Jubilee Shrine

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Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,

Those who visited our jubilee shrine recently may have noticed that it is adorned with a new banner. It invites us to gather in Lamar to celebrate the 60 years of Confidentia Shrine blessings.

The logo on the banner captures exactly that. The blue shrine graphic highlights a golden Father symbol, a special treasure for the Texas Schoenstatt Family. The palm tree identifies the locality of the shrine on the shore of the Texas Riviera. The golden number 60 reminds us of the Blessed Mother’s loyalty to this place of grace as it weathered many storms, tornados, and also listening to the innumerable heartaches of spiritual storms and dangers.

Our Confidentia Queen has drawn us to her cradle of sanctity where she accepted our contributions to the capital of grace, a prerequisite for her fruitfulness from the shrine.

Our Gift in Return for the celebration of the jubilee on October 19 will be the renovated campus surrounding the shrine. Countless hours of physical labor have been offered by you ever since Harvey. Likewise, many of you have given monetary donations. All is very much appreciated and we sisters pray that your generosity will be abundantly rewarded by our Confidentia Queen.

Look once more at the Father symbol. It was Sr. M. Joselinde, who received it from Father Kentenich in 1967. He had kept the symbol in his office for three days prior to giving it to her. He told her: It is a beautiful eye, a work of art. But it must always be a symbol for a reality: “The Father sees his child. … Father sees me, Father loves me, Father knows me.”

These words can be a lifelong program for the covenant partners of our Confidentia Mother and Queen.

Why not try it out?!

Your Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

Confidentia Ancedotes – June 2019

Posted on

June 28, 2019

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,

And welcome back to ordinary time! That’s how the season after Pentecost to the Sunday of Christ, the King is called in the Liturgical Year. In the secular world, much of this period is vacation time, a season to get away from day-to-day chores and to devote time specifically to relaxation. This can involve travel or a stay-at-home vacation, nowadays called a staycation. Whatever you do, please also feel free to include a refueling of your soul by visiting the Confidentia Shrine during its jubilee year.

In numerous stories and poems of her new publication Kate Otto’s Legacy – Daily Life for a Schoenstatt Mother, the author gives witness to the transformative power of the Confidentia Shrine in her life. The booklet is available in our gift shop.

We are happy to host camps for young women, high school students, and younger girls during June and are grateful to the moms who accompany their daughters and volunteer as chaperones. Please pray for the success of these vacation days in the shadow of the shrine.

It’s also high time to share with you more details about the celebration planned for the 60th anniversary of the Confidentia Shrine on Saturday, October 19, 2019. We will begin around 11 am and close with a Holy Mass of Thanksgiving at 4 pm officiated by Bishop Mulvey of Corpus Christi. Please save the date and invite your family and friends to this Shrine Festival which includes a BBQ lunch, games, talks, info booths as well as the possibility to visit our MTA in the shrine and thank her for the past 60 years of blessings.

Wishing you a happy and rejuvenating vacation,

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

Confidentia Ancedotes – May 2019

Posted on

May 15, 2019

 

Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

“Bring flowers to the fairest, bring flowers to the rarest …!” With this and similar songs in honor of the Queen of May we offer our love to the Blessed Mother during these thirty-one days of grace. Devoting one month of the year to the Blessed Mother is a universal custom of the Catholic Church. In Schoenstatt it has taken on a unique character through the ‘May blossoms’ with which Joseph Engling strove to prove his love to the MTA. His longing was to prepare a bouquet of flowers for her as lovely as the loveliest blossoms of spring! Above all, he desired to turn his soul into a beautiful garden of Mary!

How did he do it? He made a plan: Every day he wanted to bring Our Lady roses, the symbol of love and esteem, by acts of surrender to her; by increasing her honor; by reading about her, and by making efforts to speak of her. Likewise, he collected forget-me-not of faithfulness in your service by fulfilling his duties as perfectly as possible. The violet of humility and modesty inspired him to honor the Queen of May by accepting corrections patiently, forgiving offenses, and obeying cheerfully. Last but not least, he collected lilies of purity by guarding his senses, by fostering silence, and praying for purity before Holy Communion. In a single month, the thirty-one days of May 1916, Joseph Engling was able to collect 1712 May blossoms for the Queen of his heart!

Many of us will have the opportunity to make a pilgrimage to the Confidentia Shrine during May. How many May blossoms will you bring to our Schoenstatt Queen? Let us unite in noble competition to honor her with many signs of love and devotion in gratitude for her faithfulness from her shrine during the past sixty years.

We are looking forward to welcoming you,

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

Confidentia Ancedotes – April 2019

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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

News January 2019

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Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!

A new year has begun; 365 days, 8760 hours, lay ahead of us. Each one a gift from God! Incredible, how much time we are given at our disposal! The question is, how are we going to invest it!?

Compared to the pioneer sisters who set out 70 years ago from South Africa and Germany by boat to venture to Corpus Christi, Texas, without any precise pre-knowledge of how long this journey would take them, we nowadays can travel virtually anywhere in the world within a few hours or a day. With minimal cost, we can instantly talk with people on the other side of the world. Nearly any question or problem can be solved promptly by searching the internet, instead of poring over a dictionary. But do we have gained more time through the convenience of our gadgets? Are we more relaxed and at peace due to the security our smart phone can offer us?

Yes and No! In theory, the conveniences of our age make our lives much easier and less time consuming. For example, we don’t have to wait anymore for a letter which takes at least a few days to arrive in our mail box. Now emails and text messages flood our inbox constantly and we feel obliged to respond immediately. As a consequence, many of us feel hounded, stressed out, and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things we “have” to do!? And here we need to stop and realize that this phenomenon /symptom of ‘having to be available 24/7 is actually a consequence of being free! Because we are free to use the time given to us, can we overbook ourselves or enjoy each moment as an opportunity to be in the service of the One who gave us this gift in the first place.

Freedom, understood correctly, is an important aspect of Schoenstatt’s school of self-education. Already in the Pre-founding Document of 1912 Father Kentenich introduced this program of self-education to the sodalists: “Under the protection of Mary we want to learn to educate ourselves to become firm, free, priestly personalities.”

Freedom is also the trademark of the Apostolic Federation of Schoenstatt whose centennial we celebrate this year. We may recall, that during World War I other men who did not belong to the Schoen­statt Minor Seminary had joined the extension of Schoenstatt. In August of 1919 the leaders of this external organization met in Hoerde, a small town north of Schoenstatt. This meeting culminated in the creation of the Apostolic Federation, a community with its own structure and principles based on freedom in order to express a maxi­mum of magnanimity in striving for Christian perfection. In Texas we have Federation Families and Federation Mothers.  Maybe you could invite a federation member to your home or group to inquire more.

In a few days we will commemorate the Second Milestone of Schoenstatt’s history. While imprisoned in Koblenz, Father Kentenich struggled during the night from January 19 to the 20 in prayer. He felt the urgent need to secure the inner freedom of the Schoenstatt Family so that it would prosper even in times of extreme fear and distress as for example during the dictatorship of Hitler. By not choosing the way of exterior freedom and accepting the exterior chains of the Dachau concentration camp, he clearly indicated to us the high value of interior freedom, anchored in “the reality of the supernatural.” In view of the gift of time, we may want to ask ourselves to what degree we are free of the ‘bondage’ of the media? Do they perhaps subtly deprive us of the time we intended to spend in prayer or for the apostolate?

60 years ago, the first Shrine on Texan soil was dedicated here in Lamar. Divine Providence has led us to understand that its mission is Confidence. Please watch for our regular Confidentia Blurbs on this website! We are grateful that we are able to invite you again this year to retreats, workshops, and pilgrimages to the Confidentia Shrine. Please check the calendar posted on our webpage and feel free to register!

Looking forward to welcoming you all,

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary