Dear friends,
What a joy to celebrate Easter with the people in struggle!
This year the community of Villa Ecológica feels more mature and grown up, and we participate in the celebrations with more calm less responsibility and a certain distance.
It happens that the Lord touches the hearts when he wants and the way he wants. Yesterday I feel touched in front of the monument hearing the song “My confidence is You, Lord”. I lay contemplating my future in peace, in confidence. Even on the night of Holy Thursday, Jesus is Lord. His smile calm storms. Like when Carmen is afraid at night and my presence beside her causes her to sleep in peace. So I felt last night in front of the Blessed Sacrament.
We do not know what lies ahead of us and fear wants to grasp me, but I rest in Jesus. During these months I give thanks all the time for being alive and being healthy. I can walk, I can get dressed by myself, I can take a car to go downtown, I can load my kids… The Lord has allowed me to continue here. I wish it never pass the clarity of such certainty.
After the prayer before the Monument, a neighbor who is being abused by her husband for too many years kneels before the Lord, and I knelt with her. I felt clearly how she was sharing Jesus’ struggle, unfair victim. She and Jesus, Jesus and she. She shows me Jesus and Jesus pointed me to her. I had to be like her kneeling before the Lord. Worshiping, resting in Him, the only one who has words of life. Begging that passes the bitter cup represented by her husband from her. What a privilege, to be able to share in the distance, the path with these women protagonists of faith!
What a joy I felt for being able to share these six years with these people! The Lord has given me many lessons and has worked on me.
Yesterday morning came another neighbor carrying piggyback eighteen years of abuse. It is so heavy this burden on her that the poor goes hunched, skinny, almost unable to look at your eyes. I cannot imagine the burden of pain that carry over even to see her daughter trying to kill herself. She came to my house on Holy Thursday to ask about the progress of her last complaint. But the judiciary is on strike. On Holy Thursday, Jesus himself with his cross came to my house. Why Jesus wanted to manifest so clearly to me? I was able to hold her, try to strengthen and increase her hope for justice. I am very happy for it. I suffer with her and I feel happy at the same time. What if one of these nights this neighbor commits suicide? What will I do then?
Isabel and I had past uncomfortable weeks because of Mr. Juan, my neighbor across the street, sick for six months that has passed through two operations and no heals, but it is getting worse. It is a sigh of the strong man who was. Why God put us this in front of us? How could I passed by his door every morning without being moved? Together we realized that the Lord called us to be present with greater intensity. The first thing we thought was of paying a particular doctor to diagnose correctly. But that’s not all he needs. Paulina took the father an afternoon and administered the Anointing. Because Juan is not close to the Church, does not participate in the community. We call Bety and Domingo, from the team of the Father Jaime, to pray for him. They came right away to evangelize him. And Juan and Yanet got happy, appreciated that very much and want to get married after twenty years of living together. If it is the God will, Isabel and I are going to prepare them. They went together to Palm Sunday Mass, I do not know how long ago they were not going, and on Holy Thursday the father washed their feet during the celebration. They want to approach the Lord! The Lord is acting, is healing. Bety told us after a Mass of health. The Lord works bodies and hearts.
I felt that Juan is my last teaching. Do I believe or do not believe that Lord can heal him? Will I be able to watch him die slowly doing nothing more than paying a doctor? Juan needs the strength of the Lord Jesus to rise from his prostration. Only Jesus can lift him.
Lord Jesus, save your people, that so much awaits you!
We confess You as the Lord of Life, but my faith is so weak…
Gonzalo Violero. Spanish CLM in Peru
