"Christmas at the Margins" - (SVST Christmas with street families, 2012 - Philippines)
In an email from a friend in México was this brief text from a Spanish priest, Antonio García Rubio:
«There is no need to look beyond. There is no need to go for the spectacular. God is the greatest simplicity and the greatest gift. Blessed are You for giving us so much. You are the imperceptible whisper that fills our soul and leaves it so attached to You that it is no longer possible to ever separate it from you again» …
Reading this I feel drawn to stop, to wait, absorbing that whisper, remaining there; carrying forth all those I love, all those who hope for something good to happen, so many faces in need of being loved and yet are wounded by their inability to experience this reality.
I also recalled words that touched me, from an interview with André Depierre, a French worker priest who died some years ago:
«The fundamental condition for evangelization is learning to discern the wondrous humanity lived by the poorest of people, recognizing the trace of God in them. I remember a phrase from a group of Muslim workers on the day of the feast of Ramadan: “You are a man of God because you look at us.” We have above all to be contemplatives… If we do not begin by recognising the work of the Spirit in the world, who will see it?»
I believe that is true and that we need to walk along with others towards this forsaken place on the outskirts of Bethlehem, so that our eyes will learn how to see. He will be born there in the faces of the refugee children and of all those who “don’t have a place” in the dwellings of this world. In them, the greatest simplicity and the greatest gift will be revealed to us, and that will be enough for us.