Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!
Greetings from the Confidentia Shrine!
Two weeks ago, we concluded the Easter season with the celebration of the Solemnity of Pentecost. Now, in ordinary time, we live by Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (Jn 14: 26).
This is the Holy Spirit’s mission, so to speak: he teaches and reminds us of what Christ said when he lived among us. To the extent that we let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit, the Good News Jesus has brought us, can enter into our hearts.
Sunday, June 19, 2022, we will celebrate Father’s Day. We’ll find unique ways to thank our earthly fathers for their love and care for us. Above all, we praise our Heavenly Father for guiding us on our way heavenwards.
Our year’s motto invites us to practice trust in God’s fatherly providence. Many struggle with this idea because their father may have lacked the ability to be trustworthy or to provide shelter and protection. It is challenging to be a father in our time when authority is downplayed. Schoenstatt’s founder, Father Joseph Kentenich, who grew up without a father was docile to the Holy Spirit’s teaching and thereby became a father to many people.
For him
- “a father demands the highest of himself and strives untiringly to personify the proclaimed ideal so that it is possible for [his children] to see it alive in this mirror.”
- “a father feels at home both in heaven and on earth and consequently radiates a closeness to God and a closeness to life;”
- “a father does not deal playfully with his [children], he does not yield to personal inclinations and passions, but rather takes each person seriously, has confidence in them, and with a sense of daring and boldness, leads them upward to the highest mountain peak — closer, ever closer to God.”
Let us fold our hands and pray for all father figures in the Church, world, and in our families, that they may be open to the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and as fathers, they become transparencies of the Heavenly Father.
With prayers from the Confidentia Shrine,
Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary