History​

When the Mother’s Federation is constituted, the founder acts!

Excerpts from Fr. Alex Menningen’s lecture on 22.08.1970 in the constitution of the Federation of Mothers of Schoenstatt Germany

The Federation of Mothers in Germany was established in 1970. Fr. Alex Menningen gave a lecture in which he pointed out that this constitution had already been established in 1914 because everything arose from the act of the Covenant of Love of 18.10.1914. He brought as a comparison the image of a chestnut. Your comments also apply to our International Constitution. Here, too, the real actor is our father and founder.

“The founder acts when mothers constitute the Federation. Her charism, her extraordinary forgiveness and the immensity of her
heart then pass to the Covenant of the Mother and to each individual Mother. They arouse such generosity that they are equal to the ideal; they couldn’t do it alone. …

“The founder acts when the Federation of Mothers is constituted”

When did the founder begin to act to constitute the Federation of Mothers?

Already on October 18, 1914. You will say, “At that time he himself didn’t even think of a mother’s Alliance, let alone guessed that the Mothers Federation would emerge. The statement seems a bit bold to us.” It is good that we doubt this so that I can refute it.

I will give an example.

I take a chestnut fruit in my hand. They ask me: When I dig it in the earth, and the fruit of the chestnut tree unfolds in a chestnut tree, are there already trunks, branches, flowers in the fruit of the chestnut tree that sank into the earth? Answer: Of course, where else did they come from? They were not glued from the outside, they came from the chestnut fruit when this fruit turned into a chestnut.

Now we transfer the example of the chestnut to the founding act of 1914

There has grown the tree of all the work of Schoenstatt. A strong trunk with a main root – THE FOUNDER – and in it the branches – the individual columns: the column of women, the column of men, the family work, and these branches branch again into smaller branches, and the smaller branches back into the smaller ones. And now we go after that, so we branch out, we put aside the column of men, the column of priests, we go after the column of women. There is another branch, which is called “Associations” – this is not our business, on the other hand a branch: “League”, – no, that is not our case either, then a turn comes: “Federations”, ah yes, there we have to go further, suddenly there is: “Women’s League”. No, that’s not our direction either; and now we have a branch in our hands, and it says, “Federation of Mothers,” our case. Was this branch in the chestnut tree when it came down to earth to produce all the chestnut? Of course, where did the branch come from, if not from this origin? So the Mothers’ Federation has been there since the beginning, when the foundation began.


Now we think more: How is it that a chestnut fruit (you can take any other example, an acorn or a pinecone, etc.), how is it that it grows so logically and deliberately on the mature tree of a chestnut tree? Yes, there is a secret address, and this secret direction works in such a way that the chestnut never becomes an apple tree, or the acorn never becomes a fir tree. There is an internal secret control. This secret control was also on the Schoenstatt tree. Only one person knew this control: the father and the founder!

The dear God and the Mother of God had communicated to him this plan, the secret guide, and now he directed the inner development according to a particularly fine enlightenment.

To stay with an example again: in a chestnut, the smaller and smaller individual branches and leaves branch out afterwards and nowhere hangs a spruce branch or a pinecone, but it is always just the branches of a chestnut. And so it was on the Schoenstatt tree. No strange things were added, but always only what corresponds to Schoenstatt. So we make a double conclusion: today’s Mothers’ Federation was already involved in the beginning. Even if you cut a chestnut, you don’t see any roots, no trunk or branches, and yet they are contained in it.

So, the fact that in 1914 you could not talk about the Federations or that you did not see the Federations at that time, when the foundation arose among the first, that does not surprise us. Invisibly, however, a Mother’s Covenant was already contained in the primordial principle. In the course of time, it has been deployed, by the founder. He has acted, he has discovered divine planning, he has developed the germ of life that Our Lady has sunk into the holy soil of Schoenstatt with an inner determination, down to the branches, until the individual communities have become visible in this tree. …

So, our father has managed to observe the growth. When the Alliance of Mothers was formed, the Father began on October 18, 1914. He carried out the growth until the moment when the owners arrived, which we now call the “Mother’s Federation”. In this way the Federation of Mothers was produced

So, our founder has acted in the past, he is also acting now… …

If we act today, if we act in the constitution and you act, then we can only say that in our place the priest acts, and we act with him…
If he has started the foundation, if he has developed this foundation step by step towards a certain goal and the Mothers’ Federation has now achieved this goal, then it is quite clear that he really acts. This is checked the moment this goal is achieved.


Who constitutes? He! Yes, and we are participating.

He acts, and because he acts, we can act. And we also feel like tools in his hand, like little tools to me, but like tools in his hand.” …