Spirituality - our way to follow Christ

Spirituality is a key word of the present time, and a name for the search of so many individuals. In the Schoenstatt Fathers we live the spirituality developed by our Founder, Fr Joseph Kentenich. And we do this as priests.

The fundament of our life is our attachment to Christ and his message. We cultivate a permanent prayer life and follow the three evangelical counsels or counsels of perfection: chastity, poverty (or perfect charity), and obedience, according to the definitions of our own Constitution.

As members of the Schoenstatt Movement, we live in a deep bond to Mary, the Mother of God, which leeds us to not only love her, but learn from her and imitate her. This Covenant of Love is rooted in our Schoenstatt Shrines, dedicated to the "Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt".

Another essential trace of our spirituality is the practical faith in Divine Providence: We believe that we are led by the living God and try to permanently find his will and follow it, as individuals as well as in community. For God, we are his beloved children all our life and till Eternity. This trust sustains in us a deep joy throughout the ups and downs of human and priestly life.

Our Founder invited us to not only fulfill our duties as we are asked to, in a somehow passive attitude, but to be generous and magnanimous, i.e., to proactively seek where we are needed and what we can do better, while serving the persons who look for our priestly service.

To us Schoenstatt Fathers, Fr Kentenich is not only a person who lived a few decades ago and gave us orientation till he died, but he is a ressurected, i.e. living, person who is very interested in the Community he founded. We pray to him, asking for his assistance. We read his writings and listen to his recorded talks, and promote the knowledge and the investigation about his thinking. We try to act the way he would have in every situation of our lives.

For all of this we have a word: the vision of Mount Sion, or in short just Sion.