La Thuile

CHARITY, THE LAW OF LIFE

by Paola Ronconi

On the conference room video screen flow images of a film about works that all have in common something to do with young people from whom society, school, or family have taken away every opportunity. They are works of charity linked to the CDO (Company of Works), in Naples, Padua, Milan, Turin, Varese, Pesaro, and Forlì, that welcome young people who have been abandoned, or with disastrous family backgrounds, victims of abuse, or those who lack an adequate understanding; young people who need to be put to a test different than prison; drop outs who can’t manage to finish their studies. There are also those whom society doesn’t succeed in pulling along because they don’t keep up with the “normal” rhythm, or because they are “differently gifted.” And there are those who must learn a trade, those, very simply, who need a little help for their exams. “At school, I was bored. Here, instead, they follow me. If I don’t understand something, they explain it again for me. They keep after me.” “Here, they have taught me to stay in front of what happens to me; otherwise, I’m the kind of person who would run away from everything.” “Why do you think they do it?” the interviewer asks. “For me, it’s because they love us.” The point is to love man, accompanying him in the difficulties of life, difficulties that for some are enormous obstacles. These young people need to share their life with someone who loves them, through the teaching of a trade, for example. But to love, you need to have been loved in turn; it is necessary that someone has had mercy on our limitations, our wretchedness, small or big (otherwise, it is only social assistance). Whether it be Aslam, Cometa, InPresa, Edimar, Solidarity Center, Piazza dei Mestieri, Solidarity Coop., La Strada, L’imprevisto, Portofranco, or Intrapresa Solidarity, deep down, it is always and only charity.
Legs to amputate, burns inflicted as punishment by mothers or brothers, men half-eaten by crocodiles. It’s the description of the entry way to hell or of a hospital emergency room. Andrea Rizzi, a young surgeon, has been living for some years in Uganda with his wife and children, and working at the Hoima hospital. With the tools of the trade literally in hand, there is a great temptation to think one can resolve desperate cases, and be a small “colleague of God.” But the next step is defeat; reality is much bigger, and very often much harsher than the attempts, albeit good, to put it in order. “One evening,” he recounts, “I returned home, and I felt like vomiting because of everything I had seen. I felt like someone who puts both hands under a colander, but try as one may, the water keeps coming out anyway. ‘Let’s go back home,’ I said to my wife, and she replied, ‘Do you think you’re here to resolve the problems of Africa? Remember why we are here; run back over the road that brought us here. Think of all the people with whom we shared our desire to come to Africa, and think of the people here in Uganda with whom we share our lives: Fr. Tiboni, Pippo, Manolita, and Stefano.” From her words came an intuition. “The first object of charity,” Andrea explains, “was me. I was there because someone had been charitable with me, when I was a little first year student in medical school… I was asked to love the destiny of the people I find on my operating table, because I would not be able to save them all… These people have the same need we have, to understand and encounter someone who testifies that life has a meaning; that there is a beauty, a truth, a reason for living; that your husband and child have a value. Since we have had the fortune and the grace to find the treasure of life, it is asked of us to tell it to everyone.” In order to live charity, one must have received it, but to give it, one must love people, one by one. At this point, there is no difference between working in the middle of crocodiles or in the hospital of Lodi.
One after the other, Marcos and Cleuza Zerbini tell their story in the conference room of La Thuile, how they began years ago to work for the favelados of São Paolo in Brazil, how gradually a movement was born to buy land and build houses, how they obtained fundamental government services such as water, schools, buses, etc., and many other conquests made with the Movement of Landless Workers of which Cleuza is the President. Marcos: “A home wasn’t everything. Even before building houses, we needed to build communities, so that people could learn to love and respect each other, but even after having ‘made’ the community, our heart told us that it wasn’t enough.” Three and a half years ago, they encountered a doctor from CL. Cleuza: “Encountering the Movement, we understood that what was missing in all these efforts was Christ. Our desire for happiness, and that of all the people with us, is fully realized encountering Him. The burden of our work has been lightened now, because our responsibility is to respond to the call of Jesus. And the result of our work ultimately depends on God, not on us. The loneliness we felt, I don’t feel anymore. Encountering the Movement, I have encountered what I was looking for all my life. I have encountered God alive in my life. And today, my work has become mission.”