Fr. Dieter’s Birthday Celebration

February 14, 2010 at Clement Manor, Milwaukee

Sermon of Fr. Gerold M. Langsch

Dear Fr. Dieter,

What a birthday! A year ago you celebrated your 70^th and we all really celebrated. Now this year, it’s different. We have come to Clement Manor to be with you, to express a little bit of what we feel deep down inside: a deep, deep gratitude for what you are going through for yourself and for us.

Yes, gratitude. The Lord has given you a new task for your priesthood. Your preaching is now the testimony of your life, of your love, of your acceptance, of your most profound suffering. A deep suffering in mind, heart and body. God took away your ability to speak, to walk, to do the things you were used to. Instead he took you along on his journey to the cross. He wants you to hang on the cross in silence.

And if I have ever admired you, I am admiring you now. I and we all feel with you. We suffer with you, and I have cried over and over with you and for you.

So, we have come to thank you and to express our support for you in your interior and exterior battle for acceptance and recovery. We know how hard that must be for you. Having to say yes to the will of God is always hard, but it is much, much harder when it includes having to give up everything, everything. At least, that’s what it looks like now.

But we are also here to tell you that we believe in miracles. The miracles of physical healing through the intercession of Fr. Kentenich. We have been praying so hard all over this country where they know you and where you have traveled; they all pray for the miracle of healing. Now, of course, being part of Schoenstatt, we know that the Blessed Mother wants to give us all the miracles we need on the spiritual level. And wouldn’t that be the greater miracle, if you and all of us could say yes to the will of God in the easy and in the most difficult situations of our life. The miracle of being open for the big and small crosses in our life?! That’s what I want to draw as a lesson for myself in accompanying you in your suffering: the willingness to accept suffering and to let it become fruitful for our priestly life.

There we see you hanging on the cross with Jesus, hanging on the cross in silence. What a lesson you give us in learning to speak the language of silence. The language of the heart, the language of inner joy, the language of love. Caritas Patris! The Father’s love has become manifest in you in a new dimension. Your whole being shows the sacrificial love of Jesus, the obedient love of surrender, the joyful love of self-giving.

Today we are here from all the different branches of the Schoenstatt family, the League, the Federation, the Institute. We just concluded a weekend for the 3. Federation course. They greet you, they send their prayers, they join their sacrifices with yours for a real recovery. We all want to thank you, to show our support for you and to join our prayers with yours for a full recovery – if this is the will of the Father. The full recovery of our own will in submitting to the will of God the Father, that would be the greatest miracle of all. But what a difficult one!

Dear Fr. Dieter, again, thank you for your loyalty! Thank you for your pain! Thank you for being you. We love you. We not only pray for you, we want to strive with you to please the Father, to please our Mother and Queen in all we do.