Family Congress
Schoenstatt - Archdiocese of San Antonio
January 16, 2016
The significance and life implications expressed from the call coming from Pope Francis, the international Schoenstatt leaders and the Texas movement
Representatives of the branches and communities gathered at Mount Schoenstatt to discuss how to go out into the world as a local movement asking ourselves, “What does Schoenstatt want to offer to the Church and society at present?” We tried to answer this challenging question knowing that Pope Francis is calling the Catholic movements to leave their comfort zone and to go out to the peripheries of society, and that the international leaders of our movement invite us to get out and share our spiritual treasures with everybody, suggesting strongly the idea: “Schoenstatt on the move.”
Additionally, the Texas Schoenstatt Movement proclaimed the annual motto, mentioned above, stating “With Mary, We Go - A New Pentecost for our Times.” But where should we go? In what direction do we want to walk in the time to come?
Here is the result of our inspired deliberations that were shared in prayer, tolerance and respect.
VISION
We came to the common conviction that we want with the help and guidance of the Divine Providence --
To lead ourselves and others to a deep and organic encounter with the Living God and with one another in Christ, through the Covenant of Love with Mary, Mother and Educator.
After a lively and proactive discussion, we clarified that everything that we want to achieve in the service to the people and Church has to have the central elements of our spirituality: total confidence in Divine Providence; encounter with God the Father in Christ; family spirit and unity; proclamation of the covenant of love for everyone as the mission of our Founder Joseph Kentenich; Mary from the shrine in her role not only as mother, but as educator as well.
After the vision discussion we tackled the obvious question: How do we want to accomplish it? The next step was then to express what we are already and positively doing to achieve that vision. The initial result is as follows: