In Timisoara / Romania
we look back on the year 2019 with great gratitude. In October our diocesan bishop Josef Pál performed the house dedication, which many helpers had helped to prepare.
Since then we have had other meetings for people who want to know Schoenstatt even more and for pilgrim groups. These include those who receive our picture in their homes and take it to other people so that the Mother of God can bring blessings to the families with her Son.
Eight girls and four women have consecrated themselves to the Blessed Mother in our house chapel this year. This is what we say in Schoenstatt: They have sealed their covenant of love with the Blessed Mother.
Strong missionary consciousness
Through the covenant of love, Schoenstatt becomes a true family, because all who seal it know and understand each other as children of the Blessed Mother and as brothers and sisters among themselves. From the covenant of love lived in this way, a strong missionary consciousness grows; one does not simply seal the covenant of love for oneself, but one wants to become a good instrument in Mary’s hand and to work with her for the renewal of the world.
We may continue to give the love we receive from God and not keep it to ourselves. Like Jesus, like the Blessed Mother, like Father Kentenich, our Founder, and like countless people have done and are doing, we may simply pass on love in a lavish way. It does us all good to simply be good.
We also try to do this through financial support of many who are very poor. But of course we cannot help all poor families, young people and children.
A life with God the main thing
Once, when I was travelling by streetcar here in Timisoara, I met a very poor family. The woman told me that her son wanted a Christmas tree so much, but financially they could not afford it. They try to be happy with their lives. And again and again she expressed that for them a life with and for God was the most important thing.
More often than not, we see that those who do not have much, share with others what they still have. In addition, an experience from my fellow sister, Sr. M. Böbe Tari:
“It touched me very much last year that a part of the donation given to us by our benefactors should go to the family meeting in the Carpathians in summer. The families were very happy about this. But when they heard that the father of one of the Schoenstatt Families had cancer and needed surgery, they decided to renounce the donation and give it to this family man. So the money was used for the operation. I was very happy about this. Unfortunately the father has died in the meantime. But he could be better treated in the hospital thanks to the financial support.”