Exile Places by Aspen Davis

Milwaukee was settled in 1835 as a port for the great lakes when people began to take interest in using the land as an ideal trading post. As Milwaukee grew, most of the immigrants were German. Today, the city is divided into four main sections; the East side is full of nightlife and specialty shopping, the North is a stronghold for the African American culture, the West is multiethnic and of many mixed incomes, and the South side has the largest Polish and Hispanic cultures.
In 1954, Holy Cross parish decided to build a shrine dedicated to the Blessed Mother. The ground breaking was on May 18 of that year and the shrine was dedicated on October 18, 1954. Through 1954 and 1965, Father Kentenich celebrated over 3,000 holy masses here. In 1998, Holy Cross and St. Anthony of Padua merged to become St.Vincent Pallotti parish.
On March 19, 1961 Father Kentenich went for a walk in Calvary Cemetary with Father Dresbach ( a priest that had been in Dachau with him) and some young girls. When Father Dresbach said something about about the girls, Father Kentenich replied “ These are the children Divine Providence has given me for now. Everything is in order.”
Jacobus Park is a small park located northwest of Hawley road and is tuck into an industrial valley bellow the ridge. During his time in Milwaukee, Father Kentenich enjoyed taking walks in this quiet, little park. He says that “ … it was a nice place to think and reminded me of my apostolic task to be like the apostle James; a voice of the Word for the people.”
Before he took over the German immigrant parish of St. Michales, Father Kentenich would celebrate mass at the Carmelites sisters orphanage. The orphanage was in Wauwatosa and contained about 200 children. His usual mass took place at 7:00 in the morning and contained little or no singing.
St. Michaels parish was established in 1883 as a German immigrant parish. Father Kintenich was appointed pastor of the church in 1959 by the Archbishop of Milwaukee. He offered many services in the German language and also held confession every Saturday morning.
In 1958, Father Ahler ( pastor of a church in Milwaukee) succeeded in obtaining 5 Schoenstatt sisters for catechesis and care of the church in his parish. He decided that since he would have to build a house chapel for them, he would also build a shrine dedicated to Mary. This shrine was dedicated on January 20,1962. The sisters kept the shrine open 24 hours a day for over 30 years, since many night workers would stop there on their way home. However in 1990 a new pastor closed the shrine and in 1998, the Schoenstatt sisters were withdrawn from the parish. The shrine was remodeled and became the Father house for the international center on July 31, 1998.
The Bishop woods was a place bought by a Schoenstatt group so that the movement could have a new place to grow. On Sunday, May 26, 1963 43 people, including Father Kentenich, went to observe the land and Father thought it was the perfect location.
Lake Michigan was a place where Father Kentenich liked to go with young people. While they would play and skip rocks on the water, father was found usually staring quietly at the water.
These were some of the main historic Schoenstatt places found in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Aspen

Dear Founder Generation Youth!
May 7, 2010

Many heartfelt greetings to each of you from our Confidentia Shrine! I hope you are enjoying each day of May dedicated to our Mother and Queen

Do you realize that we will soon be on our way to Milwaukee? I want to update you on some things about the National Convention. The different branches are preparing a spiritual gift for Father Kentenich’s 100Th Anniversary of priesthood. The mother’s branch is offering hours of adoration, the couples are striving to re-new their covenant with our father and founder. And we?? Hey, let’s hurry up and start preparing our spiritual gift.

We first need to brain storm and come up with some ideas and then choose the one which is more fitting for the occasion and which inspires us to strive. I have here a couple of suggestions:

1. to pray a morning prayer everyday
2. to pray 100 times (each one of us) the prayer for Father’s canonization
3. What about 100 answered prayers from all of us? This is a real challenge, but could be an excellent gift for our father and founder. Each girl can take care to get 15 answered prayers made explicitly to Fr. Kentenich. The prayers can be collected from different people; you can invite the other girls from the group to participate. What is an answered prayer? It is a petition asking Fr. Kentenich for his intercession. The petition has to be written down. I can send you the format sheet to collect the petitions answered, in case you decide to strive to conquer this gift. It can be: asking him to help you with a test; a sick person can ask for Fr. Kentenich’s intercession for a recovery; another petition can be asking his help with the sale of a house, or as simple as to ask him to help you find something you lost. This gift would confirm of Fr. Kentenich’s continuous new-presence and care for his Schoenstatt children and at the same time give witness to his saintly life and priesthood. We could collect all of them in a box shaped like the Father-eye symbol. It would represent our gift to the Church: our saintly father and founder.

You can continue brainstorming and decide: what is the gift we want to offer? And let me know ASAP what you would like. I suggest you choose one from among you to be in charge to contact me after your meeting and inform me.

I will have T-shirts of our Youth ideal to wear for the National Convention! I am so excited!!!! We could also prepare a little booklet with prayers and songs.

Here is also a prayer we will start praying TODAY- for a blessed and fruitful pilgrimage and National Convention. We will pray it everyday.


Dear Mother Thrice Admirable Queen and Victress of Schoenstatt, my dear Founder Generation Queen! Please prepare my heart for a deep encounter with our father and founder and with you in the Exile places. I know that during the 14 years F. Kentenich spent in exile he stood with you under the cross. During these years our father and founder suffered betrayals, misunderstandings, trials, separation and condemnation. However it also revealed God’s power through the direct intervention of the Blessed Mother and proved our founder’s confidence and loyalty to the mission entrusted to him by God.
Mother, let me experience a grace-filled pilgrimage. Help me thank our father and founder worthily through my striving to become like you. Help me be a blessing for our Schoenstatt youth realm- a new Founder Generation Hero and make the Covenant of Love my life!
Bless all members of the Schoenstatt youth whom we will represent, our families and friends, (here you can make a pause and add your special intention for this pilgrimage) and the whole Schoenstatt family in our country. Amen


United in the Covenant of Love
Yours truly,
Sr.Mara