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“Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality” – Read Acts 10:23b-48 & 11:1-18
“I am a nobody.” This is how she defined herself, lost as she was, alone, in the great sea of a suffering humanity. An Italian lawyer and social activist, she volunteered to the service of the poor and sick for 33 years in Africa. At an early age, Annalena Tonelli (1943 – 2003) was attracted by the example of the radical Christianity of Blessed Charles de Foucauld and, in an extraordinary way, imitated his example. Her life also ended like his, by the bullet of an unknown assassin. She trained herself on the job to become an expert in successfully treating tuberculosis and, in June 2003, was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award. She is a gigantic figure and by what she describes as the mercy sacrament, she showed an extraordinary understanding of the mystery of Christ’s incarnation in those who suffer. She, who was known as Mother Teresa of Somalia, is still remembered with an incredible love by the Muslim population of the place where she lived and died.
“Put out into the deep and lower your net for a catch.” This sentence of Jesus to Simon Peter in the Gospel of Luke (5:4) was taken allegorically by Blessed John Paul II to describe the missionary attitude that befits the Church at the beginning of the Third Millennium. The need of a new evangelization to overcome the passivity of traditional Catholicism and address the growing masses of non-Christians has been repeated in countless ways by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and many others. Recently, Pope Francis has given most remarkable guidelines in his document, “The Joy of the Gospel.”
What made Nelson Mandela the most famous and revered leader worldwide, and perhaps the most respected leader in history was his unshakable commitment to human rights and dignity.
Mental illness, a prevalent and often unbearably painful form of disease, is still silenced and stigmatized, though it affects a big part of the world’s population. We tend to project, to the victims, our deepest fears and superstitions, but it’s time to begin to deal with them. After all, it’s our duty to care for the sick, no matter if the affliction is in the body or in the mind.
God shows us that we too must first love others. When we achieve this stage of the Christian life, we have graduated. We need, first, to apply that love is the answer before expecting others to do the same. And forgiveness is a straight path to unconditional love.
To use the emotion of fear is contrary to the teaching and spirit of Jesus. Any attempt to induce fear must be roundly rejected. The primacy of love must be the context to motivate members. It is a call not to act on an emotion but
to will to love.
When Sr. Mary Varguese, a nun who used to work with special children in India, arrived in the Philippines to take care of a center of mentally-challenged persons, the conditions were so bad that she was “completely shocked.” However, after some years of hard work, the situation has greatly improved. Says another nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Anne who deals with the center’s children: “When you see God in them, everything becomes easy. They are angels because they don’t have malice.”
Reggie is the human face of poverty in the Philippines. He and his family lived on the edge of total poverty until typhoon Haiyan pushed him and his family into absolute poverty this November, 2013.
Richard Pulga died five days after Typhoon Haiyan rampaged across the fragile land called the Philippines. In another time, another place, the healthy 27-year-old would still be alive.
