Joseph Kentenich

Kentenich was born on 16 November 1885 in Gymnich, near Cologne,[2] and baptised "Peter Josef Kentenich" 19 November at the parish church of St. Kuniberts. His mother was Katharina Kentenich and his father was Matthias Köp, a manager on a farm in Oberbolheim, where Katharina was one of the domestic staff. Because his parents were not married (and never married), Joseph was born at the house of his maternal grandparents, Anna Maria and Matthias Kentenich, where he spent the first years of his life.[3]

From the end of 1891 until the second half of 1892, Joseph lived with his mother in Strasbourg, where she worked as housekeeper for her elder brother, Peter Joseph, after his wife's death on 25 December 1891. The boy attended a school there for a few months. After her brother remarried on 25 June 1892, Katharina and her son returned to Gymnich. Katharina had to look for a permanent job in order to support her child. Joseph Kentenich was sent to St. Vincent orphanage in Oberhausen on 12 April 1894.

Upon arrival, Katharina gripped the neck of a statue of the Virgin Mary, a gold chain with a cross, one of the few precious objects she owned; she asked the Mother of Jesus to take care of the education of her son; then she put the cross on Joseph's neck.[4]

In 1897, Kentenich expressed the wish to become a priest for the first time. Two years later, he entered the Pallottines minor seminary in Ehrenbreitstein. In 1904, he entered the novitiate of the Pallottines in Limburg an der Lahn. In his diary, he formulates his spiritual journey, "God is my only goal, He must also be the star that guides my life." However, the novice faces great difficulties because of his intellectualist character. He is obsessed by the primary philosophical question: "Is there a truth, and how to know it?" He has a strong aspiration for perfection, but feels great insensitivity, a sort of incapacity to love God and his neighbor. Marian devotion allows him to overcome this crisis and discover the personal love that God, Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary have for him, a love that is not an abstract idea but a living reality.[4]

Kentenich as a newly ordained priest, 8 July 1910

Admitted to the religious profession in 1909, Kentenich was ordained as a priest in Limburg an der Lahn on 8 July 1910.[2] Although he wished to become a missionary in Africa with the Pallottines, his poor health prevented him from doing so.

He was first a professor at the Minor Seminary of Ehrenbreistein. From 1912 to 1919, he served as spiritual director at the minor seminary of the Pallottine Fathers in Vallendar-Schoenstatt, near Koblenz (Germany) on the Rhine.[2]

Indeed, a storm stirred the seminarians of Vallendar-Schoenstatt: students protested against the internal regulations that they considered too severe, while some protesters spread graffiti on the walls. Two priests in charge of their spiritual direction resigned. Under this situation, a young Father Kentenich is named as a replacement to try to restore confidence among the seminarians.

In his first talk, he said to his students: "I am at your disposal with all that I am and all that I have: my knowledge and my ignorance, my competence and my incompetence, but especially my heart... We will learn to educate ourselves under the protection of Mary, to become strong, free and priestly men."[4]

Kentenich with the Schoenstatt Marian Congregation, on 18 October 1914 (seated fourth from the right)

Kentenich interpreted the ideas of his order's founder, Vincent Pallotti, to be calling for a worldwide effort to involve lay people in apostolic work, and to unite the various factions in the church. With some of his pupils, on 18 October 1914, Kentenich laid the first milestone of the foundation of the work of Schoenstatt. In an old chapel of St. Michael, formerly abandoned and used for the storage of the gardening tools, he gathers about twenty seminarians, where they seal with the Mother of God a covenant that he will call "Covenant of Love". What makes unique this approach is that this "Covenant" is conceived not as a pious symbol, but a bilateral contract between the two contracting parties. Moreover, through the voice of the young priest, the Holy Virgin is requested to kindly establish Her throne in the chapel to spread Her treasures. Each group member agrees to give up now entirely to the Mother of God, and to let themselves be guided by Her through their existence. The group founds a Marian Congregation. This was the beginning and the lasting foundation of today's worldwide development of the Schoenstatt Movement. This movement was named after its place of origin, a word meaning "Beautiful Place".[5] Indeed, deeply convinced about Mary's love for all men, he implored by prayer and sacrifice for that small chapel becomes a privileged place of grace and that it may attract multitudes of men and educate them for the work of God's Kingdom. The speech he delivered on this occasion is considered the Schoenstatt Movement's Foundation Act.

The picture of the Mater Ter Admirabilis

The young seminarians grasped his intentions and testified by their spirit of sacrifice during the difficult years of World War I. Some of them, amid the dangers of the front, sacrificed their lives for the cause of Schoenstatt. Among these, the Servant of God Joseph Engling was particularly distinguished: fervent seminarian, supporter of the peace between nations and an apostle among his fellow soldiers, he offers his life to the Our Lady for the development of Schoenstatt. On 4 October 1918, he is killed by a shell in Northern France,[4] next to Thun-Saint-Martin; Father Kentenich would present him as a model. His process of beatification is underway.

In 1915, a teacher gave to Kentenich a picture of the Virgin Mary with her child. Despite the low artistic value of the work, Kentenich was charmed by the tenderness of the gesture of Mary clutching Jesus on her heart; he placed the picture above the altar. Revered as Mater Ter Admirabilis (Mother Thrice Admirable), she was put in all the foundations of Schoenstatt. During the war, a magazine under the same patronage was sent to the youth who fight at the front.

The project, initially purely local, expanded rapidly after the World War I. It gradually encompassed many categories; young people, priests, women, sisters, and pilgrims. They are structured according to the German practical spirit, with leagues, federations, and later with secular institutes, according to the degree of commitment of each of their members.

A retreat for priests preached by Fr. Kentenich in Schoenstatt

Father Kentenich traveled through all of Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland, to preach retreats and lead training sessions. From 1928 to 1935, he preached every year for more than 2,000 priests, and many other lay retreatants.

In 1926, Kentenich founded the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.[5]

Once in power, the Nazis were quick to classify Schoenstatt among the main opponents to destroy. After endless vexations, on 20 September 1941, Kentenich was summoned by the Gestapo; quoting some of his words spoken in private, but reported by an informer: "My mission is to reveal the inner emptiness of National Socialism, and by there to defeat it." The police imprisoned him for a month in a cell without ventilation, in order to break his resistance.[4] This was a small massive concrete cell without any opening than the door. Father Kentenich was kept for four weeks in this dark and airless bunker, which was previously the vault of a branch of the Reichsbank.[6] He left physically debilitated, but calm and peaceful as before. He was then transferred to a prison in Koblenz, a former Carmelite convent. He spent 5 months there, after which he was sent on to Dachau.

Kentenich at the Dachau concentration camp (second from the right)

Registration card of Joseph Kentenich as a prisoner at Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp

In March 1942, Kentenich was sent to the Dachau concentration camp at a moment when the living conditions there were worsening. Of the 12,000 prisoners, there were 2,600 priests. He was inmate number 29392.[7] The Germans were grouped in a block where they have the right to attend daily Mass celebrated by one of them; it is only on 19 March 1943 that Kentenich would finally celebrate his first Mass at the camp. He gave a nightly spiritual conference to his fellow prisoners thanks to the protection of the "kapo" (inmate block chief) Guttmann, a Communist with a rather violent temper, but fascinated by the behavior of the Father. Guttman saw Kentenich sharing his meager daily bread and soup with a detainee in need. Guttmann will save the priest who is destined to die in the gas chamber because of his poor health. On the day of the selection visit by an S.S. physician, the kapo hides Father Kentenich; assigned to the disinfection commando, he can now circulate in the camp.[4]

On 16 July 1942 two new Schoenstatt branches were created at Dachau under the responsibility of two lay deportees: the Secular Institute of the Families and the Institute of the Brothers of Mary. Transferred into various blocks, Kentenich restarted his apostleship each time despite the personal risk he incurred. Over the last three months of 1944, the tightening of the Nazi regime and epidemics cause the death of 10,000 prisoners in Dachau. It was at this point that, in a surprising act of faith and hope in this hellish place, Father Kentenich formed, with a group of disciples, the International Movement which extended the foundation of Schoenstatt out into the world. He wrote under unimaginable material conditions treaties of spirituality, prayers, and a didactic poem of over 20,000 verses.[8] In December, Bishop Gabriel Piguet, a French prisoner, ordained under the highest secrecy a priest Blessed Karl Leisner, a seminarian from Schoenstatt. Suffering from tuberculosis and very weakened, Leisner will celebrate only one Mass before dying; he will be beatified by John Paul II on 23 June 1996.[4]

On 6 April 1945, upon the arrival of American troops, the prisoners are released. On 20 May, at the feast of Pentecost, Father Kentenich returned to Schoenstatt. He immediately restarted his work, in order to establish a barrier against those whom he considered the biggest dangers to the world: communism in the East, and practical materialism in the West. The experience of deportation helped him teach his disciples on how to maintain inner freedom. Fathers Albert Eise and Franz Reinisch, two martyrs from Schoenstatt, the first who died from disease in Dachau, the second executed by the Nazis, were invoked as heavenly protectors by all members of the Movement.

On Christmas of 1965, Father Kentenich, his face now adorned with a long white beard, was enthusiastically welcomed at Schoenstatt. His work now included five secular institutes: the Schoenstatt Fathers, the Diocesan Priests, the Brothers of Mary, the Sisters of Mary, the Ladies of Schoenstatt, and the Families. This also encompassed the several Federations and Leagues gathering priests, lay people, and families. Kentenich now devoted his strength to exert his spiritual fatherhood for all.

An influential theology in the years after the council demanded an "adult faith", the autonomy of the individual, the application of the democratic principle in the Church. In opposition to these ideas in fashion, Father Kentenich stressed the fatherhood of God and that of the priesthood in the Church, especially the episcopate. Originating from charity, the fatherhood is also the principle of authority, and implies obedience. The motherly presence of Mary is another essential point of the movement; the practical way to live it is the covenant of love with the Mother Thrice Admirable.[4]

View of the Adoration Church, where Fr. Kentenich is buried

In a speech at the annual conference of German Catholics in 1967, Father Kentenich said: "We are living in apocalyptic times... Heavenly and devilish powers clash in this earth... This confrontation is to challenge the domination of the world; today this is clearly visible." The solution is to appeal to the Virgin Mary, "favorite weapon in the hands of the living God".[4]