In this Kentenich Year we are happy to make a great gift to our father and founder: the inauguration of a new house, where the Secretariat of the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women and the so-called Youth House find their place. In the Youth House, young people have the opportunity to spend some time to test their vocation to our institute.
The house was inaugurated during a Holy Week retreat with a group of 43 girls. We consciously took each other’s hands and moved into the new house together. In doing so, we started the song of the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women, which echoed with great enthusiasm through all the rooms of the new home: “The world is waiting for Mary; we will be the heroes of this mission and fight for the Schoenstatt Kingdom. New lilies sprout, intimately connected. Queen of the Covenant of Love, accept our total dedication with our entire glow. Look at us, who give our lives for the ideal. Father, we are filled only with your desire for purity to shine in our lives. You are very beautiful, Mary! We want to be Mary! Tabor for the world, remaining in the shrine!”
Larissa Rodrigues Ferreira from São Bernardo do Campo, State of São Paulo, belongs to the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women and has been living in the Sister M. Emilie House for one year and eight months. She remembers this momentous occasion:
“The Youth House affirmed in me the ideal of being Lily of the Father and Tabor for the World. Living in the Youth House makes me see what a gift our father and founder gave us with the ideal of being ‘little Marys.’ Both in the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women and in the vocational discernment circle, all strive after the example of the Queen of Lilies for the highest degree of generosity. Housing the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women in this new house shows us that our calling is a gift from the Blessed Mother, that it is worth striving for the ideal of the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women.”
Giovanna Borges Leal dos Santos of the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women of Jaraguá, São Paulo reports:
“For me personally, it was a gift to experience the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women united in the Sister M. Emilie House! We had been lacking space, especially for us as Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women! The shrine in Atibaia has always been home to the Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women of the Southeast. Here we held our regional meetings where we experienced so many grace-filled moments. And now it is even more a home than ever before. It is our home where we experience we are one in the heart of the Father! The inauguration of the house was once again an event to experience this unity of our Schoenstatt Girls and Young Women. In the ideal we are all ‘Lily of the Father, Tabor for the World.’ Always in the shadow of the shrine.”
For everything, yes, for everything, let me give heartfelt thanks!