Back from Schoenstatt

I spent last week at the Schoenstatt International Retreat Center in Vallendar, Germany. I am part of the Regional Board for the Military Council of Catholic Women-Europe and serve as the Secretary and Grapevine Editor. Each year, we put on two conferences; a Leadership Training Conference in the Spring and a Spiritual Retreat Conference in the Fall for all Catholic Women affiliated with military chapels in Europe. This was the first year to have a Conference at Schoenstatt with Sister Angela Macari. Schoenstatt is a movement within the Catholic Church to help Catholics become better educated in their own faith and through Mary become closer to Jesus. I have attended 7 conferences over the past 5 years and this conference and location was the most spiritual and moving! I feel as if I have left a new and better person!

Schoenstatt was founded in 1914 by Father Joseph Kentenich. He was a young priest put in charge of a bunch of rebellious seminarian students. In 1914, he and the students put themselves under the protection of Mary. After WWI, the Schoenstatt movement continued to grow and an order of secular sisters was added in 1926. Fr. Kentenich was imprisoned during WWII and survived to help his movement grow across the world! There are Schoenstatt retreat houses all over the world now. You can see a picture of the original Shrine above. This Shrine is copied at every Schoenstatt Retreat Center.

The best description I can come up with for Schoenstatt is gentle, quiet peace.

Sister Angela is holding a Mother-Daughter retreat this next weekend so MK and are back in the minicooper so she can experience the quiet, peace, too. I really want to spend the time to help her re-center her faith. She's entering those wonderful pre-adolescence years and we need all the help we can get! MK is very excited to have our very own Nun taking care of us!

To see more images from Schoenstatt, go to http://www.mccw-worldwide.org/ and follow the link on the left side of the page for europe grapevine. This is the most recent Grapevine I have published and there is a beautiful photo essay put together by our Publicity Chair.