Longing for Life 9 Days of Prayer for Young People Longing for Life On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Lioba Riechel Ulrike Dold Marihedwig Heisig, Translation A novena for youth who are not satisfied with things as they are, but have the courage to initiate change and achieve goals, who dare to dig more deeply and investigate life’s meaning We thank all youths and young adults Table of Contents who have contributed to the creation of this novena. Getting started 5 IMPRINT Before you begin this novena 8 Editor: „Father Kentenich is good for me Secretariat Pater Kentenich 11 Berg Schoenstatt 7 First day: I want to live 15 56179 Vallendar Second day: Look ahead 19 Telehone +49 (0) (261) 6404 410 Telefax +49 (0) (261) 6404 407 Third day: Never give up 23 eMail [email protected] www.schoenstatt.de/sekretariat-pjk.htm Fourth day: Now 27 Layout: inCicero Mediengestaltung, incicero.de Fifth day: And the fear...? Printing: Rübel Offsetdruck GmbH, Neuwied 31 Sixth day: (Fear) ... becomes confidence 35 Ecclesial permit: License Nr. 1/2004 Seventh day: Yes 39 Trier, November 8, 2004 Eighth day: Dare to risk 43 Ninth day: We can change things 47 Prayer for the beatification of Father Kentenich 51 If Father Kentenich is considered „holy“ in this novena, it is merely an expression of Pray with Father Kentenich 52 private opinion. The official decision of the Church is not thereby anticipated. Brief biography: Father Joseph Kentenich 53 Fotos: Cover, p. 26, 30, 38, 46): J. Neuenhofer; p. 4, 13, 26: Sr. M. Hermia; p. 10, 42: A. M. Jäger, Marienbrüder; p. 14: p. Ventura, Chile; p. 10 (Hintergrund), 18: Hostrup-Zehnder; p. 18, 22, 34, 38: Archives Sisters of Mary; p. 22: Institute of our Ladies of Schoenstatt; p. 30, 46, 50: J. Boos; p. 34: Oberkirch 3 Getting started „We have many questions and few answers.“ (Johannes, age twenty-one) This prayer for nine days is an attempt to give answers. Better yet, it accompanies you for nine days on your very personal search for answers pertaining to your life. Not only answers to what actually bothers you and are not easy to handle: exams, the right professional and vocational decisions, the next step in a relationship, overcoming a weakness... All of these involve questions that go to the core. Each person must confront them sooner or later: Who am I? From where do I come and where do I be- long? What is meaningful and what gives depth to life? Is there a God and am I worthy of him? If yes, how do I deal with opinions formulated short and clear like this one by a young person today: „The human person is a product of evolution. He is small, predictable, and physically insignificant. Some day (hopefully soon) he will be extinct or will destroy himself. Is that the meaning of life?“ Our life and our happiness depend on the answer to this last question. Not only our own lives, but also the lives of those with whom we are united. 4 On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Getting started 5 While praying this novena allow the next nine days to be „I now place myself completely at your disposal with all a time to listen attentively and intensely to the longing of that I am and have: my knowledge and ignorance, my your heart. ability and inability, but above all my heart.“ On our life’s journey, much depends on the persons who accompany us. In this novena, Father Joseph Kentenich Father Kentenich never took back these words. They are will be your companion: someone totally there for those his promise, his offer, to us, to you! he meets, someone who really listens. Someone happy In one of his books – created fearlessly in the con- about the originality of each human being and in whose centration camp of Dachau, written on small scraps of presence everyone senses their own self-worth. Some- paper, and smuggled out under mortal danger – Father one who makes others strong and challenges them to Kentenich quoted Albert Schweitzer with the following choose a great goal for life: holiness. Father Kentenich words: shows us the simple way, how to live in the midst of our modern world as a happy person holding the hand of „In the idealism of youth, man sees truth. In it, he pos- God and Mary, the Mother of God, and thus to change sesses riches that he should not exchange for anything. the world. We must be aware of the fact that life wants to rob us of faith in the good and true and our enthusiasm for it. But Father Kentenich guides you by the example of his life we need not relinquish it.“ and his words, and above all through his intercession at the throne of God. Father Kentenich tells us: Do not worry, you and I, both of us together, will examine When he was a twenty-eight-year-old young priest, he what burdens you, your problems. But at the same time, became the spiritual director at a minor seminary, a large we will use them as steppingstones to build a new world. high school for boys in Schoenstatt, Germany. He was You do not live to be pitied (who would want that), but for responsible for the education and spiritual life of the boys the strength that lives in you and to help love attain the outside classroom instructions. The words he spoke victory. during his first talk to the students on October 27, 1912, are timeless. Now, at the beginning of the novena, they are addressed to you: 6 On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Getting started 7 Before you begin the novena • Ask yourself in the evening: • Be clear! What did I learn today? What is the question I seek answers to right now? What experience, what word is important for me? For what situation do I expect light and help from You may want to write a „journal of your rays of Father Kentenich? For what intention do I say the hope.“ novena? Try to tell Father Kentenich about it or write a letter to him. • Choose one! • Reserve time! Take one of the inspirations „concretely from It’s best to set aside a definite time each day everyday life“ for when you will pray the novena. and try to implement it – on one or several days. • Be attentive! Watch for what happens in and around you during the coming days: for ideas you get and the insights that you receive, even if they are uncomfortable. God speaks to you through events and through all that is alive in your heart. 8 On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Getting started 9 „Father Kentenich is good for me Young people experienced Father Kentenich Back then „Back then I was a student and invited to visit Father Kentenich. Although he had much work, we took a walk with one another almost every morning. He simply listened. For hours. I could talk and talk. I experienced that he listened to me like nobody had ever listened in my life. The whole world was far away. Only he and I. I had the right of domicile in his heart.“ After a first encounter with Father Kentenich, a young theology student walked for a long time silently down the mountain with his friend. Trying to express what he had experienced, he broke the silence, „Pedro, how close God was to us!“ Later he wrote about this encoun- ter with Schoenstatt’s founder, „That day I understood what it means to be a child, the joy and happiness of having a father. A father who knows and understands me, who waits for me, who rejoices with me, is near me... God is like this and much more.“ „I didn’t experience Father Kentenich very often, but through those few encounters he became for me like a 10 On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Getting started 11 rope on a rocky ridge that I can firmly grip hoping to find God through him.“ A young woman who had a brief conversation with Father Kentenich a few months before his death relates, „He so convincingly embodied the divine that a great longing awakened in me to be able to love God as he did.“ Today „For me Father Kentenich is the person who tells me that heaven is within me; God lives in me.“ „What Father Kentenich means for me, what he actually has to do with my daily life, is becoming apparent only gradually, but ever more and more. For instance, it does me so much good to rest in his gaze; to simply let every- thing take its course in the hectic and excitement that a day often has. Something in me changes when I look at his eyes. I am again able to meet life more serenely. I can really rest near him; there is no need for much action. Something happens in me that brings me closer to ME... There I can be simple. Father Kentenich is good for me.“ „‘Do not stop halfway.‘ With these words, Father Kente- nich drew me out of being so dreadfully down.“ 12 On the way with Father Joseph Kentenich Getting started 13 First day: I want to live „One thing first: I want to live. This way.“ Filippa Sayn-Wittgenstein (Diary entry at age 18) To live – finally. That’s what I wish. A full, abundant, liberated life. I have allowed myself to be lived long enough, wedged between school, deadlines, obligations.