Italy – Page 10 – Comboni Lay Missionaries

Witnesses of Hope

14 July, 201614 July, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Witnesses of Hope is a group that meets, since five years ago, in the Comboni House Justice and Peace.

This is a self-help group composed of people with problems of addiction to alcohol, drugs, depression or any addiction that imprisons and not allowed to live well. It is frequented mostly by women, mothers, wives, with children or husbands to deal with the terrible addiction to alcohol and drugs. The tool of this group is simply the word and sharing. Narrating, talking about themselves, as a therapeutic way to share their pain, to find strength and support. Learn to accept it and learn to listen. Because by sharing a person does not feel alone, the common stories described how mothers, women and many families are struggling with the physical and emotional dependency that enslaves. The beauty of this group is that it is a “small family”, where people are bound together by trust and friendly relations. Everything living is shared in the group; trust and credibility are the fundamentals that build it. It is been more than two years that I participate as a volunteer and become part of “the family”, every Tuesday night at 19:30 we meet and listen to each other. There are times when many people are involved others are few, but whatever is the number, every Tuesday night the Comboni House remains open to create a space to host and share, not only the pain but also moments of smiles and moments of laugh. There are weights that is difficult to carry alone. We must overcome shame to share. For this was born Witnesses of Hope, to help people to walk together and find help with simple and concrete gestures. Regina and I (psychologist and voluntary) started from the provocation topic, from which we can start thinking about the problems that people live and their own experience, a job that leads to self-knowledge, to recognize the own history and particularly that helps to value the people, to take life in their own hands, with courage and determination.

I come out always, every encounter, touch, both to share moments of joy as intense and profound moments, facts made from still open wounds. Each story is a reading from the Gospel of the day, a fact that struggles, battles, victories, defeats, disappointments, in search of the love who cares, because only Love saves: loving yourself, loving others, loving life.

On the outskirts of the world where there are no services, it is wonderful to see how people are organized, without losing heart and simply looking for solutions, such as giving birth to a group of self-help to find the strength and desire to change. Together, we can!

Emma, CLM

The synonymous of “today” is “present”

13 June, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

What is the force that sustains us? Where comes the hope to continue dreaming?, to resist and seek a more human and happy society, fraternal for all? What moves us are the dreams of the reality we want, a reality that does not include situations of injustice imposed by social and economic inequalities. A reality that becomes what we want if we transform it, through our efforts, with our senses, with our choices. We can and must be builders of our personal and collective destiny, our creative freedom. Our passion and our faith gain strength when they are in direct contact with the victims of violence and injustice against the sacred and fundamental rights called human rights. Signs and resurrections are born from ourselves, from the union and strength of social movements that come from below, from civil and organized society… us! We can rain Justice, fertilize the soil and get the fruits to be born. It is possible, because we want to, we believe, we fight, we build. Fatigue, disappointment, discouragement, fear becomes a giant shadow if we allow it, but becomes small and insignificant if we stick together, if one fight is the fight of all. Among the strongest evils is the absolute indifference, is the one that dominates our daily life, a kind of blindness in the world that causes people to live in a bubble, blind and sterile, unable to hear the heartbeat of the world, forgetting in this beating is also ours. We are the world, history is ours, no one feels excluded, in the words of a song by De Gregori, We are writing history! We are part of an alphabet that is able to write wonderful things, if we choose it. Courage, dreams, hopes, dignity, freedom, justice, respect, imagination, fraternity … so many feathers with which to start writing, where we are the blank paper where start doing it.

Emma. CLM

Love is a rope that leads you to the top…

7 June, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Beautiful, is truly beautiful the catechesis I am doing with the prisoners. It has just started, but it is doing well and every time I go deeply in love, in fact, we are all passionate. It is a time of sharing, searching the depths of the soul.

This desire to be on the way to understand … to understand each other … to meet God.

We walked with stones in the heart, hard, heavy; we gradually try to scratch them, to make them small as pebbles, which can be removed from the shoe. Up to now, there are six prisoners who are part of the group and that is good, because the smaller group the easiest is to speak because of the intimacy that is created to say the important and difficult things in life. I am also very happy to have the opportunity to be among them without iron bars or divisions, sitting in a circle, in a space that helps to have proximity. It is important to be close, eye contact, listen carefully, take their hand to pray and finally embrace to say THANK YOU. It takes an hour and a half or so. I forget being in a prison, I don´t remember the red uniform they wear. I forget the noise of the other prisoners. We are so immersed in the depth of what is shared which could apparently be the title of a book by Virginia Woolf: “our own room” and it is in fact a space just for them, a space for us. I like a path that works human recovery and self-discovery, leading to a personal growth inside and this applies not only for them but also to me. It is an exchange, a give and take as the dear old but still relevant Paulo Freire said: “no one teaches anyone, everyone learns from everybody”. We can learn from every person, also from prisoners and their stories, and I am grateful.

Emma, CLM.

Some are beautiful victories

19 May, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

Some are beautiful victories, small achievements born from battles with the taste of effort, commitment, hope, design, dream, but most are the result of a long journey of one who never gave up, despite the difficulties.

These small victories are joys that can be shared in the work team made up of people who believe in what they do, that with confidence and humility make possible every day the daily work of the prison ministry.

Today, finally, we began catechesis in the maximum-security prison of Nelson Hungary.

Our joy, along with those involved, came after a long wait, because of the necessary permits, bureaucratic entanglements that normally discouraged many… BUT NOT US! We have kept the faith and constancy in our goal trying to make possible an order made by the prisoners themselves, mediating with the “institutional” part who have no confidence in the recovery and development work with prisoners. Some believe it is wasted time, not worth it, that those who are in prison has no right, not even to seek God or themselves, just to be inside a dark cell. However, it is precisely in this darkness that comes the desire to “see”, to meet again, to embrace the mystery that strikes the human soul. Nobody has the right to deny the necessity and spiritual quest that is proper to the human being. Therefore, our struggle was to meet a demand that comes from a personal search, a desire to seek God and look to oneself.

Today begins a new path with a small group of prisoners, and finally, in a room where you can put in a circle, freely, without any impediment bars, handcuffs, dividers of physical space, security agents.

It is very exciting what is shared, strong, human, full of questions and desires. Roads that we built together, where everybody shares and enrich the other, where they teach one another, where emotions, joys and wounds of life to be reconstructed are communicated, a life that does not feel lost or ruined by the weight of guilt or conviction of individuals.

Be blessed this path, be blessed this thirst for God that magnifies the heart, that breaks borders and prison bars made of flesh and humanity in searching the path.

Hurrah for the life that is able to birth and grow, Hurrah for the people who help to grow, hurrah for the will to place on the road and not being afraid to do so.

Among the prisoners’ rights that must be respected it is the right to religious assistance.

All prisoners have freedom of religious worship, and the right to practice in their prison unit; nobody is forced to participate if they do not want to.

Emma, CLM in Brazil

Forgive us our debts!

5 May, 2016 by Alberto de la Portilla

From 22 to 24 of April, I participated in Uberlandia, a city of Minas Gerais, in the Regional Prison Pastoral Assembly, an annual meeting that brings together all representatives of the State of Minas Gerais who work in this ministry. The theme was: Ecumenism, Justice and Mercy.

A justice who is the mother of peace, justice that is done with Mercy and Truth, justice is not only done with reason, not only with the heart, but Justice which is reason and heart together.

Justice often suffer from a stifling bureaucracy, old and conservative, a corruption that is evil in the world, who forgets to be restorative, seeking the good of all, to be punitive and elitist. There is an African proverb that says “in the trials you should go with a sewing needle and not with a knife to cut”, a justice that works to bring the lost humanity, even when you are guilty, because only through an act of mercy and not of condemnation will come the change, life and hope. If I did not believe it, I could not do my missionary service in the Prison Pastoral Care, where three times a week I meet the prisoners of male and female prison. It is my daily Gospel, where the wounds of guilt bleed and cause pain to whom committed the crime and to whom received it: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors”.

To know how to forgive, to listen, through a journey that is done together, guilty and victim, through a reconciliation that completely changes your life, the weight of guilt and the weight of hatred.

In the days of the Assembly, I strongly felt my commitment to this path, as well as my colleagues who volunteer in prisons. None of us receives a salary, or admiration from people, on the contrary, they see us as “friends of the bandits and vagabonds” because the prisoners are considered the world’s waste, an evil to be eradicated rather to recover.

Everything we do is the result of our passion and our conviction of faith for a prison which can educate and not just punish, which can be more dignified and respectful, who knows how to create mercy and peace.

Brazil ranks fourth among countries with the highest number of prisoners in the world, after the United States, Russia and China. Human rights are not welcome in Brazilian prisons and other prisons in the world, this is also our “struggle” for full recognition.

Overcrowding, nonexistent sanitation, mice make detainees company, physical and psychological violence, illegal activities. All this happens when you visit prisons, where humanity and legality have no meaning in a complete contradiction with a structure create to rebuild and secure these values. These are the reflections, proposals and commitments we talked in our meeting, which encouraged and inspired our YES to this pastoral, remembering that there is no crime or sin that can eliminate man from the heart of the Merciful God.

Emma, CLM