A cry that becomes a question in the rubble
I just finished my daily silence and I am about to leave the house to go to Waf Jeremie–the Port-au-Prince shantytown. This morning, there is something different about leaving my house to get in the car and merge into the seemingly hostile traffic...Dearest Father Julián:
I just finished my daily silence and I am about to leave the house to go to Waf Jeremie–the Port-au-Prince shantytown. This morning, there is something different about leaving my house to get in the car and merge into the seemingly hostile traffic to reach my people, my poor ones–who are mine because they are His, therefore they are given to me as companions on my journey. Yes, this morning is different because my heart is still filled with some words of yours that I just read: “To the degree that we take upon ourselves the difference of Christ’s gaze and we live a more fulfilled humanity, we can respond to this cry of humanity and of today’s world” (“Living Is the Memory of Me,” p. 50, Assembly of Responsibles of Communion and Liberation, La Thuile, Italy, August 28–September 1, 2010). Because of those words, I left the house with the desire to answer that cry, starting with my own cry regarding myself, my life, and my vocation, and within the relationships, the circumstances, and the faces that my daily life is made up of. You talked to us about prayer, meditation, and sacrifice–a path laid out for us, a face to follow, and a change we must implore. I am not spared the hardship of this circumstance: the Haiti heat and the devastating earthquake; the cholera emergency and the incumbent hurricane; the food shortage and the police confiscating people’s cars on preposterous pretexts… Everything is given to me to allow my cry to emerge and to make me beg for a change of myself; to make me cry out my desire for Christ and for His gaze on me and on the world; to make me fall on my knees, just like the people of Haiti, and beg for Christ–as we have been taught.
This living cry accompanies me throughout my day, and it makes me ask for something more in my relationships, in what I do, and in staying in front of the tools that our companionship points out. I carry you with me to Waf Jeremie; that is, I carry the Church to those who are on their knees waiting for something good or, better, for the good.
Sister Marcella, Haiti