Wednesday, August 3, 2022
08/03/2022 – In a new edition of the cycle on the spirituality of volunteering, María Cecilia Jaurrieta invited us to reflect on how to creatively discover tools to respond to our brothers, based on our daily commitment, seeing in them Jesus.
We start with a prayer taken from the Eucharistic Prayers:
“Give us the depths of mercy in the face of all human misery, inspire us with the gesture and the appropriate word in front of the lonely and helpless brother. Help us to show ourselves available to those who feel exploited and depressed. May your Church, Lord, be an enclosure of truth and love, freedom, justice and peace, so that everyone finds in it a reason to continue hoping. May those of us who seek you know how to discern the signs of the times and grow in fidelity to the Gospel; that we worry about sharing in love the anguish and sadness, the joys and hopes of all human beings, and thus show them your path of reconciliation, forgiveness, peace…”
Voluntary actions with a specific purpose can be undertaken by organizations that already have a long history in the Church: Catholic Action, the Vincentian Conferences, the Legion of Mary or the Secular Franciscan Order, or volunteer animation groups can also be created.
In traditional organizations not everyone will be actively involved because they will have to take care of or attend to their state obligations. On the other hand, in the specially created groups of volunteers, everyone will be committed to action.
I think we should not have to remember that in our daily commitment seeing Jesus in our brother we have to give an answer because Jesus came to heal the whole man.
See, judge and act
Taking the theme of loneliness as an example, it is important:
Watch: Discover what need or what signs of the times is speaking to us
Judge: discern the causes of the problem we observe. For example, in the case of loneliness -which is multi-causal- we can examine what people who feel lonely manifest. Judging is a diagnosis that tries to analyze to give a better response to what we are going to undertake. In this sense, for example, for single people it may be more appropriate to organize a walk or a movie performance, a pilgrimage, a dance or recreational space.
Many mutual aid groups become, due to poor animation, a wailing wall and in the end everyone flees. You have to know how to combine strategies or approaches
Act: It is essential that there be an animation group, that there be no ‘lone rangers’ because that’s not how it works. It is necessary to be trained minimally with respect to what it is to form a group.
In the program we were accompanied by Claudio Martín Loria, a graduate in Nursing and Psychologist, teacher and volunteer in the Miraculous Medal parish with his professional service.
Mr. Claudio shared with us his experience in dealing with the post-pandemic effects that have left many sequels, including loneliness and social isolation, and provided advice on staying connected and reintegrating into communities.
We invite you to listen to the complete program in the audio that accompanies this note