God was waiting for me

Perhaps you, like me, have at least once asked yourself: who really are the poor?
I do not know how to give you a definition. I can, however, tell you who they were—and are—for me. And above all, I can tell you who introduced them to me.  

Concern for the least fortunate, the most fragile, the defenseless, is not improvised!  It is a perspective that is trained over time. And it becomes truly profound when you see your fragility with your own eyes and you also discover that you are poor and loved just like this! There is the keystone, the revolution within you.

But let’s take one step at a time.

I learned about love for the poor within the walls of my own home. I was small when, every Saturday morning, a Romanian man would come by our home to ask for something to eat. I would see my father run out to chat with him, while my mom would grab some things to make him a sandwich and something else. I learned about it from a Romani child I used to see every Sunday outside the doors of my church: I couldn’t do much, but I could share a cup of milk. I exercised my perspective by going to visit the elder residents of our town with my youth group.

Little things. Simple gestures.

Still I felt that my heart was growing. I had a sense that God was waiting for me there right there. And he was letting himself be found. For me it was immediate wonder.

In my discernment journey, the encounter with Marco was fundamental: he was a man who had chosen the street as his home, and I met him in Rome where meals were being distributed for the poor. He had a strong dependence on alcohol and swollen feet and wore slippers with worn-out soles. One day he was especially drunk and screamed at me with words filled with rage, overturning the plate of dinner that I had offered him all over me. I could turn my back on him and leave or I could stay. Stay like Someone had done with me, without being shocked. “I had mercy upon them,” writes St. Francis. That evening Marco explained mercy to me; he made me experience firsthand God’s infinite mercy toward me, before the many plates overturned before Him. Before Marco’s eyes, I recognized my miseries, my poverties, my rebellion, and my cry that Someone had heard and on which Someone had had mercy. My poverty was becoming an opportunity for tenderness and sharing. In Marco’s face was the face of a God who made me look within and look at my own poverty with kindness.

And when you realize this, your wings unfold and Life begins again!

My perspective continues to be trained. I realize that there is a nugget of gold there, among the least, and that for this nugget of gold, it is worth giving my life because that is where God is who is coming to find me!

This insight became even more concrete when I arrived in Padua at Progetto Miriam, a house for women who are victims of trafficking. There I discovered for myself that while you try to be with the wounded person, in reality you are healing. It was a powerful experience of charism that becomes healing and sharing. One day one of the girls said to me: “Carmen. You are like us!” It was a direct statement that floored me a little. Then I understood: it was true, only from that perspective could I be a sister, could I allow myself to be touched and met by Jesus in them. So, one evening I was sitting on the bed of one of the girls, attempting to spin a thread of trust, and one of them burst into tears and told me “I am scared, I don’t want to prostitute myself anymore…” That cry was a punch in the stomach. That sentence helped me to give voice to my silences and my hidden fears. While I stayed with her, in reality my own wound was healing.

And once again, I found myself poor in their midst, before the face of the Master who stretched his hand out to me and tenderly drew near.

It is not always easy. While you are giving of yourself, you often run into delusions, disillusions, struggles, and fatigue. The poor are not poetry (perhaps they are at the beginning!). They are people with a story and often they show you realities that are more or less harsh.

One evening, together with the Sisters, we were waiting to welcome a new girl to Progetto Miriam. We worked to prepare the bed and what was necessary for the night, toothbrush, and bodywash. And then everything was ready! Waiting for her deep into the night and then not seeing her arrive was hard. I experienced all the energy of the community welcoming and making space together with all the hardness of a doorbell that wasn’t ringing. With this experience, I had the privilege of seeing lives slowly blossom again and move from feeling like objects to experiencing that they are worthy of love. All of this took place sometimes while they were working on crafts in the studio in the house: in that patient work they were actually sewing the pieces of their lives back together.