Schoenstatt ....
Spirituality
"If you want to conquer hearts, you need to offer yours.""
Fr. Kentenich
Covenant Spirituality
The covenant of love with Mary is an original form of living our baptismal covenant. Mary invites and encourages us to join her in the pilgrimage of faith thus imitating her love and life in the same “yes” to Jesus. The Schoenstatt Family calls this daily living with Mary the Covenant of Love. In this Covenant, people from all walks of life and from every age group can strive to live their faith in everyday experiences.
The Covenant of Love expresses and safeguards the covenant with the Blessed Trinity. Symbols of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have been given prominent places in the Schoenstatt Shrine. This helps many people to deepen their relationship with God.
The 18th of every month is commemorated especially as ‘Covenant Day’ by all Schoenstatt members.
"We want to show through our lives that God lives"
Fr. Kentenich
Instrument Spirituality
Every person has the desire to be needed by another, to be able to make a difference in our world. In the Covenant of Love, Schoenstatt members express their willingness to be instruments of God. A key concept of Christ’s teaching in the New Testament is that God is a loving Father. This understanding of God the Father is fundamental to Schoenstatt’s spirituality and personal formation.
God loves each one of us personally and has a unique mission for each person. There is a loving reason behind every circumstance of our lives. This gives our lives the dignity of meaning and purpose. Fr Kentenich loved to say “God is Father, God is good, everything he does is good”. He mastered the tremendous difficulties of his life by living as a beloved child of the Father.
In his providence God has included our cooperation and our free decision in his plan of love. He wants to engage in dialogue with us and he challenges us to interpret his inspirations and directions. We can become attentive to God’s plan for us by examining our talents, our ability to love, and the circumstances in our lives that evoke powerful responses from us.
Mary was an expert in discovering and carrying our Gods plan of love and united with her we too can become masters of following the path of God and being useful instruments in his hands.
"The everyday saint tries to do everything as perfectly as possible but out of deep love
Fr. Kentenich
Everyday Sanctity
Sanctity (or holiness) is often seen as being reserved for the chosen few or the famous saints. However, Father Kentenich encouraged us to be “Everyday saints.” The everyday saint tries to seek and find God in daily life, not just keeping Sunday as a holy day but by sanctifying the whole week. Everyday sanctity may be defined as a divinely willed harmony between a whole-hearted attachment to God, to work, and to our fellowmen in every circumstance of life. We can practice everyday holiness by undertaking the ordinary tasks of the day in an extraordinary way or fulfilling the duties of your state in life as perfectly as possible and out of love for God.
"Only living faith overcomes the world"
Fr. Kentenich
Divine providence - our response to God's call
God speaks to us in ordinary and extraordinary ways, we have the task to discover his will. Father Kentenich did not rely upon visions and extraordinary happens to find God will, he observed the everyday situations and learnt to discover God plans. Similarly, Schoenstatt members strive to follow Fr. Kentenich’s path to recognize God’s providence in every event and happening in the world. He was convinced that we encounter the loving plan of God in our own lives. As a result, he spoke of the “voice of the time, the voice of the soul and the voice of the order of being, the nature of things.” Every joyful or sorrowful experience has been anticipated and carefully considered by our loving Father. As a consequence is meant to bring us happiness in the end. God has great things in store for us.