A Youth Pilgrimage at the Beginning of the Year 2025
The two Catholic youth groups from Timisoara – Hungarian-speaking and Romanian-speaking – still enthusiastic from last year’s Schoenstatt trip on New Year’s Eve, fulfilled their great wish to begin this new year at a Schoenstatt Shrine. Thanks to generous donations from Germany and their own hard-earned contributions, 36 young people traveled with Sister Erika-Maria Bukovics, the diocesan youth advisor, and Sister M. Andreea Deac to our Schoenstatt Center on the Kahlenberg in Vienna, Austria from January 2 to 5.
It became clear shortly before departure that heaven itself was taking the organization into its own hands when the priest who had planned to accompany the group canceled due to illness. The new Salvatorian provincial, Father Martin Gál, who was transferred from Timisoara to Vienna, Austria last year and knows all the young people well, was all the more pleased to be able to celebrate Holy Mass with them. On the way, we also received the news that the Vienna city guide we had asked for also had to cancel. This encouraged the creativity of the young people, some of whom successfully prepared themselves to explain individual sights in Vienna, such as the Augustinian Church, the Hofburg, the National Library, and the State Opera. They shared their knowledge with the others on Saturday after the group attended Holy Mass in St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
The feedback received showed that the city of Vienna was a beautiful experience for everyone.
For all of the pilgrims, the most profound and real experience was the encounter
with Schoenstatt and the shrine.
Report of the youth from Timisoara:
“With the Blessed Mother, we look at souls with eyes that radiate hope.”
At the suggestion of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, the two groups of students and young adults of the diocese of Timisoara, Jubilate and Tekmek, together JubiTek, decided to be pilgrims of hope. At the end of the first week of the New Year, the Jubilee Year of Hope, we made a special pilgrimage to the Schoenstatt Center at Kahlenberg in Vienna. There is nothing more beautiful than to begin the new year under the loving glance of God and Mary, the Mother of God, at such a place of grace. The Kahlenberg Center is a wonderfully beautiful and peaceful place that impressed many of us. A young man who participated in the pilgrimage said:
“The first thing that struck me in the Schoenstatt Shrine on Kahlenberg was the feeling of being at home, because every Schoenstatt Shrine has the same structure. In addition, the sky was beautiful after the nightly adoration time, very starry, emphasizing even more the close relationship with the Blessed Mother and bringing me closer to her and her Son Jesus.”
The Shrine is the center of the Schoenstatt Movement, and many of us paid attention to every detail in this place, be it the original two-level crib, or the Book of Home Shrines. Although we belong to two different youth groups, here we felt like one large family under God’s watchful eyes.
“As a mixed group, we experienced the joy with which the sisters welcomed us at the Kahlenberg center, the Eucharistic Adoration, the Holy Mass celebrated by Father Martin Gál, and the games to get to know each other. The community dances presented by the members of the Tekmek group recharged us mentally and emotionally,” stated another young man.
Not only did we experience these wonderful days as a family, but we were also glad that there was a young couple in our group who shared their experiences as follows:
“It was a spiritually beneficial time of prayer and fellowship with one another. We were deeply impressed and inspired by the story of the couple who managed to build up Schoenstatt in their home country of Hungary. Also, the covenant of love, that the four young people sealed with the Blessed Mother, reminded us of our covenant of love as married couples.”
This pilgrimage was more than special because, as mentioned above, four young people in the group sealed the covenant of love, an act with so much impact and hope for them. The covenant of love is the culmination of our relationship to the Blessed Mother. It means that everything we have and are we place into her hands so we can learn from her and with her and, so in this way grow, as pleases God. A young woman relates:
“The desire to make the covenant of love was a decision of the soul. The Mother of God was always present in my life. Through her I have learned to love, to forgive, and, above all, to say ‘yes’ to the divine plan from the bottom of my heart, in every situation. Sealing the covenant of love was significant for my present and future spiritual life. During the celebration I had to say two sentences: ‘Give us your eyes so that we can see the good and beautiful things in our lives and in the world’ and ‘Give us your feet so that we can walk the path you want to lead us on.’ The Blessed Mother knows best and she knows that I will transform these statements, which I read in the covenant of love celebration, into a lifestyle over time and with her help. We had a moment of silence in which each one prepared a personal prayer. It snowed this Sunday at Kahlenber. It was quiet in the shrine even though the entire group was present. All around us there was only the whistling of the wind, and when we finished the prayer and opened our eyes, I felt the Blessed Mother was with us, loved us, and was happy that we had entrusted ourselves to her. Under the wintry, clear sky, the date 01/05/2025 means a new beginning of hope, love, courage and peace for me.”
The four young adults who decided to take this step took part in several preparatory meetings, each of them inspired by something specific. One young man said:
“This preparation brought more into my life than I expected. I can honestly say that in the beginning I thought it would be like at the university—that someone would lecture and we would listen. It was very interesting that the preparation for the covenant of love was not like that. We didn’t have to listen; we wanted to listen and there is a great difference. I think the desire to learn more and be better prepared came from wanting to feel as worthy as possible to take that step. I am very happy with how the preperation went. It was interactive and with a powerful message that touched me deeply in my soul.”
In this preparation, the four candidates for the consecration learned that the covenant does not only concern them, but also many other Christians. Another young woman from this group who prepared for the covenant testified to this:
“The preparation for the covenant of love called me to commit myself to the Blessed Mother in love, faithfulness, and trust, and to strengthen my spiritual bond with her. This covenant urged me to live in harmony with the ideals of the [Schoenstatt] Movement and to spread the love of the Blessed Mother. The preparation I received helped me understand and learn how to live these values every day. I also learned about the capital of grace, a spiritual ‘fund’ to which each member contributes through good deeds, self-education, and prayers to support the common mission and obtain graces for the whole community.”
It was not only a special moment the four experienced on this beautiful pilgrimage. A young man who was at the ceremony of the covenant of love, said the following:
“I saw in the four who sealed the covenant of love the sincere joy they had in wanting to live with the Blessed Mother every day. It was profound and moving for all of us to be there for the covenant, and the significance of the moment was not just because of where we were, but also because of the celebratory atmosphere of the moment.”
“This pilgrimage will stay in our hearts forever. We thank the Blessed Mother that she called us to this beautiful and special place, and we thank the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary who accompanied us and made this pilgrimage possible.