Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,

The month of May finds us in a situation which is not unlike that of the disciples after Jesus’ Ascension. We, too, remain in the room where we are staying (cf. Acts 1:13). As joyful apostles, we unite around the Blessed Mother praying with one accord. During this whole month dedicated to her honor, we prepare for Pentecost on May 31. In this way, each day of May can become a day of grace, a day to live our covenant of love, and a day of Pentecost.

A month ago, on April 15, we united with the international Schoenstatt Family to offer a crown to our Queen of physical and spiritual health. This crown will remain in the original shrine until the end of the pandemic. You can make a virtual visit there by clicking here: https://www.schoenstatt.de/de/livestream-urheiligtum.htm.

We are invited to daily offer our crowns to our Mother and Queen thereby renewing our unconditional trust and childlike surrender to her. In the worldwide crisis not only we, but many Catholics in the whole world are motivated to seek the presence and protection of the Blessed Mother. On May 1, our US bishops consecrated our nation to the Blessed Mother asking her to show herself victorious as Mother of the Church (http://www.usccb.org/about/communications/consecration.cfm).

Meanwhile we have experienced that some TX dioceses have opened the churches again and also begun with inviting parishioners to the celebration of Holy Mass, albeit with certain restrictions. And so, as joyful apostles we stay with the Blessed Mother and draw hope and courage from her. She didn’t just intercede the coming of the Holy Spirit together with the Apostles. She surely also took them into her school, so to speak, during this time of waiting while they were together. They were to become more deeply acquainted with the Risen Lord whom they followed, learn more about him, become open to the working of the Holy Spirit, and thereby become fruitful for the kingdom of God.

We expect the same from her. We gather around her in our little Cenacle. We want to learn from her, we want to be open to the Holy Spirit like her and abandon ourselves to the Good Shepherd as joyful apostles, living the covenant.

With prayers from the Confidentia Shrine,

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

For more information CLICK HERE

Without the basic cell of society, – the family – Schoenstatt could not exist. Father Kentenich (1885-1968), the founder of Schoenstatt, knew this very well. He was able to work with families already since the 1930s, when the industrial revolution threatened to tear families apart. During his time in Milwaukee he worked tirelessly to build up, educate, and strengthen families through his weekly talks to couples. Through his message and the response of the families, he was able to bring to fruition what he has once written to families from Brazil in 1948….

To read more, go to https://schoenstattwisconsin.org/dedicating-our-home-to-god-and-mary/

Dear Schoenstatt Family,

To download the prayers click here

To go to our Facebook page click here

Happy Easter and Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine,

We just experienced an extraordinary Triduum and Easter! Perhaps very much like that of the first apostles who after the Last Supper dispersed in isolation, fear, and desolation. Unlike any other, we commemorated the days of the passion, death, and resurrection of Our Lord from home with the help of TV and the digital media. This in itself is a gift and makes us long all the more to return to the sacraments. Accompanied by the threat of the virus, the question concerning life after Covid-19 goes through our minds: What does God want to tell us personally and the world at large with this pandemic?

The news portrays a world caught between fear and anger, between an excess of information and helplessness, negligence, worry, and panic. We are concerned about the medical workforce who serve beyond their strength to minister to the sick and dying. And we worry for the many who have to remain at home, and are anxious about the security of their jobs, their businesses, and the future of their families.

All of us have to come to grips with the sudden reality that our life has fundamentally changed. What seemed meaningful and what we took for granted before is breaking away – piece by piece each day.

This situation challenges us to be and to remain Joyful Apostles, Living the Covenant. The resurrection of Christ is the proof of divine strength that breaks forth from the collapse of human strength. Redeemed by him, we have received his new life. And this is what truly matters!

As worldwide Schoenstatt Family we unite today with great joy, hope, and confidence to hand over the crown to the MTA, each in his or her home.

For more information visit: www.schoenstatt-int.com .
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/schoenstatt.international
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schoenstatt_international/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchoenstattInt1
YouTube: Schoenstatt International – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr_ky-h4ymhmVxJL7qi2nKQ
WhatsApp: +49 152 3610 3024

In the Confidentia Shrine, we sisters offer the crown for all of you and your intentions, and we are grateful to you for your continued spiritual and material support,

Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary

Hello, my name is Nicole Phelps and I am a leader in the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women (SGYW) of Houston, Texas. This past January, I had the opportunity to take a pilgrim MTA with me to the March for Life held in Austin. It was amazing to see how the Catholic Community can come together and work towards a common goal. I think, this ties into this year’s motto of living the covenant. Attending the March for Life was an amazing opportunity to live out my covenant in day to day life. While deepening our faith is absolutely necessary, we need to go out to different communities and bring others in. To be an apostle we need to leave our comfort zone and trust that God and the Blessed Mother will guide us. 

As SGYW, we also have our own motto on a national level. This year it is: “Grow Boldly: Dare to Love”. Inspired by this motto, the leaders from Texas crowned our MTA as Queen of Life on March 25, 2020. We asked her to “not only nurture our physical life and to protect us and those who have been affected by Covid-19, but to also guide us in our spiritual life so that we may grow in our striving towards a life of grace and virtue.” During this time of social-distancing, we are working to grow closer together and to deepen our faith. There are different ways to grow in our faith. My family has started to pray the rosary together with other families across Houston with the help of Fr. Richard hosting a live rosary on Facebook. Due to not having to drive places and attend as many meetings, I have more free time during which I can journal. Overall, I have lived our motto of growing by setting a goal of what I should do and attempting to do it each day. Growing closer to the Blessed Mother can look different for everyone, but we know that through the covenant of love our Mother and Queen will lead us on our journey heavenwards.

Nicole Phelps

We Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary in Lamar, TX are praying and bringing our contributions to the capital of grace for you and your families!

May our Confidentia Queen grant you the grace of unlimited childlike confidence during these challenging times.

If we want to know what it means to live the covenant of love with Mary as joyful apostles, we only need to look into the lives of three Josephs: Saint Joseph, Father Joseph Kentenich, and Joseph Engling.

St. Joseph

With great humility and trust, Saint Joseph lived out of a covenant with the Blessed Mother. He was the first one to live in a mutual relationship with her.

His life, hidden to the public eye, protected the treasures of Jesus and Mary. This just man, as we know him from Scriptures, devoted his life to the two great personalities that changed the course of history. In persecution and in trials, in doubts and incomprehensibilities, Saint Joseph remained faithful to his covenant with Mary.

After she had said yes, and after the Savior was conceived in her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit, Saint Joseph noticed that something had happened, and he was deeply troubled. In a certain sense, the first disharmony in the house of Nazareth! The Blessed Mother was silent. What God allowed to happen to her is incomprehensible. Of course, then he helped her; he sent an angel who said to Joseph, “Joseph, fear not to take Mary, your spouse, home.” Are these not incomprehensibilities? Then, the Son of God was born in a stable, and he had to flee from earthly princes, after the angel had said: “His kingdom shall have no end” (Mt. 1:18-25).

At the age of twelve, Jesus preached in the temple. Mary and Joseph found him there after searching for him during three days of painful suffering. He was not only disobedient; with head held high he stood before them and said to them, “Why did you search for me? Did you not know that I have to be about my Father’s business?” It is almost as if he would turn his back on Mary and Joseph (Lk. 2:41-52). Again, no rose without thorns. Think of the life of our dear Blessed Mother, – how many thorns there were! There were also thorns of poverty. The Savior was born in a stable in extreme poverty. We know that Joseph and Mary brought the offering of the poor when they presented Jesus in the temple (Father J. Kentenich, OME, #1, 171).

The mystery that unfolded before Joseph’s eyes demanded of him steadfastness and a brave spirit of endurance. To remain quiet in the face of doubt requires strength, from within. This is what Joseph embodies throughout his life. His unpretentious spirit certainly helped Jesus remain hidden for 30 years. More than a skillful hand, he had a wise heart. Along with Mary, he, too, pondered in his own way the will of God made flesh in the child Jesus. In his love for Mary, he learned to embrace God’s plan for him and his household, even when it meant the most difficult sacrifices. In covenant with Mary, Saint Joseph became the revelation of God’s fatherly features for Jesus here on earth. In his bond of love with Mary, he has made possible for us to contemplate the model and ideal of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The fact that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph were so distinctly chosen by God for their particular missions caused difficulties. Often Saint Joseph was left in darkness. In his life, we see that his love for Christ and Mary was always greater than the challenges and sufferings he may have had to endure.

Today, when we venerate the memory of Saint Joseph, let us ask him to intercede for us the strength to remain faithful to our covenant with Mary and welcome into our lives, with calm and at peace, God’s incomprehensible demands.

Father Joseph Kentenich

Father Joseph Kentenich was the instrument chosen by God to found the Schoenstatt Movement, out of a covenant of love with Mary.

He was born on November 16, 1885, in Gymnich, near Cologne, Germany. He deeply loved Mary and the Church. At the age of nine his mother consecrated him to the Mother of God. At that point, he placed himself entirely under her protection until then and throughout his whole life. A particular moment of grace in his life was when his mother consecrated him to Mary on April 12, 1894. We could say that at this point, God conferred upon him his charism. This significant moment of his childhood consecration and the powerful event of October 18, 1914 opened a path for many others to live out of a covenant of love with Mary. Including his joys and sorrows at home and entering the orphanage, we see Father’s life reaching a climax when he became a priest and later on a founder. All of these events formed his personality. God gave our father and founder a great capacity to take in the individual and the community. He had an immense pedagogical capacity to help others find their way into the supernatural world, while remaining attached to the things of earth in a healthy measure. He was also orientated toward a metaphysical way of thinking. He went forth from central principles and ultimate truths to the particular applications or questions. All of these elements have given way to a monumental source of life and strength for the Christian soul: the covenant of love with the Mother of God.

Attentive to God’s designs, Father Kentenich knew how to interpret the signs of the times. Along with a small group of students, he sealed a covenant of love with Our Lady in the little Schoenstatt chapel on October 18, 1914. This was the beginning and the foundation of Schoenstatt. Today this movement of life continues to spread throughout the world.

During the period following 1914, more and more people came in contact with Father Joseph Kentenich. Over time, he founded several communities for priests, families, men, women, youth, children, and the sick. These are organized into the Secular Institutes, Federations, and League branches of the Schoenstatt Movement.

At the end of his seminary formation, his superiors at first did not admit him to the ordination to the priesthood. During World War II, he was a prisoner of the National Socialists. He spent more than three years in the concentration camp of Dachau, in Germany. From 1951 – 1965, he was separated from his work by Church authorities and was sent to Milwaukee, USA.

Obedient to the Church and faithful to his founding charism, he accepted this time of testing as his personal imitation of Christ. For him everything, including the cross, was an expression of God’s merciful love. He himself became a father to many, announcing, and living this reality in a convincing way. Throughout his life and especially through his suffering, he wanted to serve the Church and, in this way, prove his deep love for her.

After the end of the Vatican Council II, he was received in audience by Pope Paul VI. At that time, the Pope expressed his gratitude to him and to the Schoenstatt Family. Father Kentenich continued to guide the different communities and branches of the Schoenstatt Family to be at the service of the Church.

After celebrating the Holy Mass on Sunday, September 15, 1968, on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, Father Kentenich died in the church of the Most Holy Trinity in Schoenstatt. His last resting place is found at the same place where he died. Father Kentenich died with the reputation of sanctity. Through his example, he tried to inspire in each member of the Schoenstatt Family what he chose to be written on his tomb: Dilexit Eclessiam; He loved the Church! The process of his canonization was opened on February 10, 1975. Annually, thousands of people
visit his tomb, located in the Church of the Most Holy Trinity on Mount Schoenstatt, Germany. There they confidently present their petitions and signs of gratitude for the graces received through his intercession. Father Kentenich is seen as the third point of contact in the covenant of love, because of his fatherly character. From the founding moment of October 18, 1914 on his position as founder has been a source of blessings for the entire Schoenstatt Family.

In 1982, Cardinal Ratzinger, later Holy Father, Benedict XVI, said:

May Mary, the Mother of the Church, through her faithful servant, Father Joseph Kentenich, teach many people the way of love for the Church so that the strength and joy of faith may penetrate our people and our nations!

Love for Mary should lead us to imitate her as our example in life and that love for her should be reflected in our lives. The prayer of the founder of Schoenstatt written in the Dachau prison camp, during World War II, should also be our prayer to Mary:

Let us reflect your image and walk through life entirely like you: strong and noble, simple
and kind, spreading love and peace and joy. In us go through our times and make them
ready for Christ (Heavenwards).

Today, when we remember him on this feast of Saint Joseph, we ask that we may learn from him how to live our covenant of love as joyful apostles. In this bond, Father Kentenich learned to embrace his fatherhood toward the family God brought into existence through him.

Joseph Engling

In Joseph Engling we have the first model of how to be a joyful apostle, living the covenant. This young man was the first of the seminarians in Schoenstatt who understood the covenant of love and took it seriously. Born in 1898 to a large family of farmers, he started school in Schoenstatt at 14 to become a priest.

Large, awkward, and struggling with a speech impediment, he did not let these things define or stop him from becoming a leader of the other boys and a courageous apostle among them. He welcomed humiliations as sacrifices and demonstrated lessons of formation in the small daily tasks of everyday life. His example brought many others to a deep love for the shrine and the covenant of love with the Blessed Mother.

Even as a soldier in World War I he was apostolic, carrying a little library of books in his knapsack on the battlefield. After offering his life to the MTA for the spread of Schoenstatt and its spirituality on May 31, 1918, he was killed  in action near Cambrai on Oct. 4, 1918, only a month before the armistice. He was buried near where he fell in France, although the exact place remains unknown. A memorial stone was placed in his honor behind the Original Shrine, and at most of the Schoenstatt shrines around the world.

The offering of one’s life for the fruitfulness of Schoenstatt is today known as the Joseph Engling act. This dedication on his part was not the rash act of a zealot, but the natural extension of his devotion and his formation in Schoenstatt. While many in the first group of Schoenstatt boys struggled to grasp the edges of the ideas Father Kentenich presented about a place of grace, the capital of grace and formation as everyday saints, young Joseph understood and, as with all great ideas he came upon, he put them immediately into practice in his life. He championed selfeducation, the daily spiritual order, and the particular examination. He focused on building the capital of grace and inspired his classmates as their leader to strive to do the same.

His covenant of love was the commitment of his life to the Schoenstatt ideals. His motto best expresses the role he assumed: “All things to all men and Mary’s very own.” He was a strong leader and a compelling apostle aspiring to sanctity and guiding those around him towards the same goal.

Joseph Engling’s work continued beyond his death. His memory inspired those who had known him. Excerpts from his diary and his biography influenced many to consider him a Schoenstatt pioneer and true saint, entrusting to him their prayers to God. The formal process for beatification and canonization was opened on the anniversary of his death in 1951.

On September 12, 1965, the “Shrine of Unity” was dedicated at the place of his death. This was a gift from the international Schoenstatt family on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Schoenstatt. The day after the dedication had taken place, a telegram was received by Fr. Kentenich which called him to Rome.

Joseph Engling placed great faith in the capital of grace as a means to help those who need it, made possible by the sacrifices and offerings deposited by those striving for everyday sanctity. This intercession was a perfect extension of all his striving, of his apostolic love for the Blessed Mother, and of his great desire to serve others.

United in the covenant of love with Mary, Joseph Engling discovered his calling and his mission. As a Schoenstatt child, he assumed in a remarkable way the ideal, the apostolate, and the practical implications of his aspirations. Let us imitate Joseph Engling in his commitment to Schoenstatt as joyful apostles, living the covenant of love with the MTA.