Development of the Shrine 1914-1919
4 November 1914 – The Blessed Sacrament in the Shrine
In the rough draft he made for a biography of his friend, Max Brunner, Fr Nikolaus Wilwers had this to say:
S. 153:
“Fortunately we were soon given permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel. So the acting Rector of that time, Fr Arthur Auer, was able to celebrate the first Holy Mass in the shrine on his feast-day (4 Nov. 1914). Our Lord came to dwell in the shrine again after a long break.“
The meetings of the Marian Sodality, with a talk given by Fr Kentenich, usually took place on Sunday. So the notes of the next talk published in “Unter dem Schutze Mariens” (Under the protection of Mary – a collection of documents covering the founding period, with commentary, edited by Fr Ferdinand Kastner) is most probably that of 8.11.1914. It dealt with saying private morning and evening prayers. It picked up the what was said in the opening talk of 18.10.1914, and started in this way:
“During our last meeting we introduced our Blessed Mother to this holy place. In the meantime our Lady has already given us a gift in return: Per Mariam ad Jesum – through Mary to Jesus! She has brought us our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. So we now possess everything we could wish for as Sodalists: Jesus and Mary!“
(Note about the meeting: It must have been that of 18 October 1914.)
