THIS MONTH I would like to speak about two of my friends: Daniela and Renato. She is a lawyer and he a registered nurse. They were married ten years ago, have three children and live a tranquil, loving family life with no financial constraints. Every day, Renato meets people for eight hours who are suffering physically in the hospital where he works; in the law office, on the other hand, Daniela listens to clients who have been particularly unfortunate.
One day, however, Daniela met a foreign immigrant whose case was more dramatic than usual: his arrest, in fact, would not only have meant his imprisonment, but also the expulsion from Italy of his two children.
Daniela was transformed from a lawyer into a social worker, and she began seeking help for the two children. She only found a barrier of incomprehension. The only viable solution at a certain point appeared to be the placement of the children in a foster home.
Daniela discussed the matter with Renato. They looked into each other’s eyes and immediately knew that their family had grown by two members. A few days later, Daniela was faced with another ‘case’ to solve. A dog belonging to one of her clients, who had been arrested, had been taken to the city dog pound where it was dying of starvation because it was refusing to eat. Daniela and Renato were well-trained by now, and they took the dejected animal into their own home as well.
This story is not taken from a book of fairy tales. It is rigorously true, but like any tale in a story book, it also has a moral… well, more than one.
First: committing a crime does not only affect the guilty party and the victims, it also affects other people who are tied to one another in personal, sentimental and family relationships.
When we are informed of a particular case, we are generally concerned with the person who committed the crime and the victims. We seldom pay attention to those who are near to them, who have ties of affection with them, and who are all too often that crime’s forgotten innocent victims.
A second lesson we can learn from Daniela and Renato’s story is that the meetings that bring a real change in our lives do not happen in a programmed, ideological environment. We need a spirit of willingness to take advantage of the present moment. When the meeting takes place, it has to find our minds and hearts free from distractions and defences – like the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Several years ago in an American university a meaningful experiment was conducted: a group of seminarians listened to the reading of the Gospel which recounts the parable of the Good Samaritan. Each of them was then asked to express their opinions about it. All of them were positive and full of enthusiasm because the good man from Samaria was exemplary of the spirit that should animate every good Christian. They were then told that it was getting late and that they had to hurry to another building nearby where there was another lecture. Along the way they found a person lying on the ground, moaning from pain and asking for help. None of them stopped except for one person: a student who had skipped the class, and who happened to be passing, purely by chance.
A third lesson we can learn from my friends’ story is that those who know how to recognise the signs that are manifested to all of us, at any given moment of our lives, are fortunate because they are enriched in a dimension that is fundamental to every human being, which is the relationship with our neighbours. Those who out of selfishness or fear fail to see those signs, and therefore fail to experience the possibility of such an encounter, cannot sense the full meaning of life; they have less, they are poorer, their lives are impoverished, even if they have a great deal of material wealth.
Dear readers, my God bless you and your family throughout the New Year.
Updated on October 06 2016