> 1934 – Main Thoughts of the Sermon

1934 – Bringing the Hero Sodalists Home

The main thoughts of the sermon on field outside the shrine

The Gaudeamus of the Assumption still resounds today, but with greater joy. We always rejoice in our Mother’s glory, as well as in the glory she has been revealing to the world over the years from this place of grace. Today two generations have come on pilgrimage to Schoenstatt – those who left from the shrine twenty years ago with faith in their hearts that required daring at that time, and that found expression in the words, ‘Nos cum prole pia, benedicat Virgo Maria!’ Their faith required daring. They were young, almost children still, and all the signs pointed to a storm. However, the greatest daring of all was to draw down the powers of eternity to this earth, and allow them to become a reality through human bodies and human hands. Their faith called for daring, because they had to commit their lives to it. One of them left here after confessing to his faith in the words, ‘Ave imperatrix, morituri te salutant! – Hail, O Queen, those who are prepared to die greet you!’ Tomorrow, when we have him in our midst again in consecrated ground, his words become a living testimony to us, a holy legacy. Truly this faith has become a truth and a judgement. At the time those words were spoken in the shrine: ‘Later generations may stand in judgement over us and conclude whether we were big enough to receive a mission from the Blessed Mother.’ When they returned home the living chiseled these words into the stone near the shrine: ‘Nos cum prole pia, benedixit Virgo Maria! The Mother of God has blessed us with her beloved Child!’

Today our dear departed have come with us on pilgrimage to Schoenstatt. When we take hold of their hands, we do so with the hand with which we take oaths. We take hold of a holy and glorious legacy. We want to take a holy mission into new and faithful hands. We hear our dear departed’s testament and make it our programme for life. We hear their last testament: Safeguard our Schoenstatt faith!

All that has developed here rests on the foundation of our Schoenstatt faith; it is the expression of our conviction that our Mother Thrice Admirable has become attached to this place in order to build up her kingdom from here.

Safeguard our Schoenstatt mission! History has passed judgement on the first Schoenstatt generation. It has stood the test. History will one day pall judgement on us, the second Schoenstatt generation. Then it will show whether our faith, our daring, our commitment was worthy of our hero generation and the Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt. Schoenstatt is a unique place of grace, created by heavenly powers and earthly willingness. Two people expressed their readiness. The first Schoenstatt generation risked their lives, and the Blessed Mother accepted their daring. It is here we find the greatness of the judgement that burdens us: Schoenstatt will continue to exist as long as we pass on our readiness through decisive striving for Christian perfection, for a Marian and apostolic life, and in this way continue to guarantee the Blessed Mother’s affirmation.

Our dead Schoenstatt pilgrims call out to us: Safeguard our holy picture! It is the sign of our faith and our grace. It has been commissioned to work as a picture of grace wherever there are people who believe.

So two generations shake hands in this holy pilgrimage. We want to be people who are worthy of their and our Queen. Mother Thrice Admirable speak those words of affirmation over us. Let your Schoenstatt mystery become the mystery of our generation as well. Then we believe that one day in the future those words will also come true, ‘Nos cum prole pia, benedixit virgo Maria!’

On Sunday evening we attended a play based on our Schoenstatt mystery. It placed before us very plastically those forces from which the hero generation grew. After the play a procession formed to bear our dead heroes silently to our Mother in the shrine. Loving hands had decorated it worthily. The almost endless procession moved in silence through the back door of the chapel square, past Haus Sonneck, and along the wide path to the inner courtyard of the House of the Federation. The College boys went with one of the Fathers into the house. Once the remains had been blessed, six boys carried each coffin. It was almost midnight. Accompanied by flaming torches the procession moved past what had been the grotto and out of the back door into the valley to the shrine. I will never forget this journey. Wherever you went there was the night and silence – and light!

Once we women had walked the path to the right of the Home of the Federation, our eyes were captured by an uplifting scene. The head of the procession had already arrived in the shrine square. One flaming torch followed the other – over the back yard around the Old House and along the garden wall to the Home of the Federation. The heroes followed surrounded by a sea of torchbearers. The boys carried the coffins of the dead victors on their shoulders. Their faces were serious, gripped by the sacred atmosphere, and full of holy reverence. After all, it was they who had brought our heroes home. The coffins were led by the banner of Christ, a rich red PX on a black background. It was the sign under which they had fought and won. This was followed by the Sodality banner which they had once held as they spoke those words with glowing love for Mary: ‘This is the banner I have chosen; I will never let go of it, I swear this to Mary!’ They remained true to this oath and sealed it with their heart’s blood as Mary’s knights.

I had to look again and again at the sea of flames surrounding the coffins. It was only a symbol of that light, that fire that burned in the hearts of these heroes. It had been lit in the shrine they were guarding, and the glow had grown brighter in the dark terrors of war. Now they were bringing it home to us as a holy gift, that we might carry the light of their light, the spirit of their spirit into a dark world.

In the black background of the room, under the sign of the Iron Cross and surrounded by white flowers, wreaths and candles, stood the simple, dark coffins. A wreath of oak leaves surrounded the inscriptions: ‘Hans Wormer, born 6.10.1898, died 15.7.1917’, and his saying: ‘Aut Caesar, aut nihil! – Either Caesar or nothing!’ Above the second coffin were the words: ‘Max Brunner, born 12.12.1897, died 23.4.1917’, and his words on leaving the shrine for the war; ‘Ave, imperatirx, morituri te salutant!’ To me it seemed as though the two dead heroes had only just arrived home fully. From here they had left to join the army, this was the home of their souls, now their mortal remains were to rest here very close to our Mother.

Throughout the night the shrine was surrounded by silent worshippers. In the shrine next to the coffins four boys from the College stood with flags in their hands as a guard of honour.