The Place Where We Are Rooted

 Kayla Doll lives in Milwaukee, where she attends UWM. She is the diocesan leader of the Schoenstatt Young Women, and she shares with us about the significance of Covenant Sunday.

 My earliest memories of going to Covenant Sundays were with my family growing up. We would always go to the May Crownings especially! We were not able to make it every month, but we came as often as we could. Now that I am in college and a little closer, I try and go every month. 

 We can go to Holy Mass every Sunday but there is something special about gathering as family. Not only my immediate family members, but the whole Schoenstatt Family comes to celebrate.  After the Holy Mass, we know that the Blessed Mother is awaiting our visit in the shrine. When we visit the shrine, the Blessed Mother greets us with a loving smile. There we renew our covenant of love, as this is the focus of Covenant Sundays: to be home with our family and Mother. 

 During the pandemic, outdoor Covenant Sundays allowed us to come together after several months. Yes, it was held outside, but the focus remained. We gathered as the Schoenstatt Family and we visited our little shrine.

 The shrine is our central point, the place where we are rooted. If we wish to live our covenant of love in our daily lives, in our families, our work, and in our communities then we must do it with our covenant partner. We cannot live our covenant without the three contact points, the head (Father Kentenich), heart (the Blessed Mother), and home (the shrine). And we find all three in our home, the shrine. 

 Covenant Sunday is a time when we as the Schoenstatt Family can come back to our roots, our source of life – the covenant of love. It is also a perfect time to introduce someone to Schoenstatt. We start with Holy Mass and then can bring them home. In the shrine, the Blessed Mother greets them, just as she greets us, with her warm, all-encompassing smile.