REFLECTION

 

An Advent Without Blindness

Martí Colom

Today we begin the Advent season, and perhaps a look at the readings of this first Sunday can help us to live in a fruitful way this time of preparation towards Christmas.

We have, first of all, the optimistic and confident voice of Jeremiah: “The days are coming when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah … I will raise up for David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land. In those days Judah shall be safe and Jerusalem shall dwell secure.” On the other hand, Jesus also tells us (in agreement with the prophet) that our “our redemption is at hand.” But his message is much more nuanced, because he utters a disturbing warning before this final promise, filled with apocalyptic echoes: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay … People will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world.” Jesus is more realistic and restrained than Jeremiah, and perhaps he also wants to be more honest with those who hear him.  He tells us: “peace will come and it is true that those who look for justice will not be deceived. But let us make no mistake about it, first there will be trials, conflicts, anguish and suffering.” Advent is not, in other words, a season of low intensity, free of worries, during which we are only asked to adorn our homes with trees, nativity scenes and Christmas decorations while we wait for the night of December 24, listening to carols and pretending that we live in a world without pain. The upcoming birth of the Prince of Peace does not imply the magical disappearance of all violence. In fact, the child is born every year in a wounded world.

Perhaps many will think that in this 2015 the truth contained in Jesus’ words is particularly obvious. Some will listen to the description of “people dying of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world” and will say to themselves: “he is talking about us.” The brutal terrorism seen in Paris, Beirut and Egypt in recent weeks, the wars that instead of fading away seem to increase everywhere, the terrible images of endless lines of refugees crossing Europe, the frail boats that daily reach the Greek, Italian or Spanish shores filled with immigrants, the increasing intolerance with which some respond to the suffering of those who arrive… everything seems to strongly confirm the dramatic passage of this Sunday’s Gospel. However, we cannot forget that at the end Jesus echoes Jeremiah and announces without ambiguity the victory of peace and a new dawn of freedom.

What we wished to underline here is that if we are to truly live out Advent in a profound way the season requires that we listen to the complete message that today Luke places in Jesus’ lips. Then we will have to reject both the fruitless illusion of thinking that we dwell in an idyllic garden without conflicts as well as the hopelessness (just as useless and mistaken) that comes from thinking that tragedy will have the last word.

This, then, requires two things of us, equally important. First, that those who could understand this Season as an invitation to forget about the problems of the larger world and to pretend that they are in a paradise may listen attentively to Jesus’ warning, and may open their eyes to the pain of others. And second, that those who may only heed the announcement of upcoming tragedies may hear also the conclusion of the passage: “when these signs begin to happen, stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.”

This age of ours is not different from previous times. As it happens now, every other epoch had those who thought that their world was the culmination of human History, and that they had reached the peak of development and attained the perfect society. They deceived themselves, because they could only maintain such a fiction by ignoring the suffering of their brothers and sisters. In the same way, there were always those who on the other hand believed that their tragedies surpassed the tragedies of previous ages.  They would declare that their horror was new, more cruel or overwhelming than the crisis their grandparents had to face –and they concluded that this surely indicated that the final victory of evil over good was a fact. They also deceived themselves, for their pain was not more vicious than the pain of their ancestors (violence is always heartbreaking, whether it takes place today or a thousand years ago, and whether it happens in the streets of France or of Mosul). And they deceived themselves most of all because at the end Jeremiah and Jesus will be right. Advent is the time to wait for He who, indeed, will one day bring peace to all.

How should we, therefore, live out this Advent? By rejecting both the blindness of the naïve and the blindness of the pessimist. This is the task of the person who wants to hear, without fear and with trust, Jesus’ words.

 

 

MY FIRST DAY OF CLASSES

A week before classes officially began, the staff and teachers at Centro San José undertook many activities. They relocated classrooms, arranged furniture, painted, retouched doors, cleaned the walls and floors and afterward decorated the preschool grounds. All was done with the purpose of offering a warm welcome to the children of Jardines San Juan (in the outskirts of Mexico City) when they arrived for their first day of class. We began the new school year 2015-2016 at the Centro Comunitario de Desarrollo Infantil San José bursting with happiness. For we know that each day we work on building values to form boys and girls to better the prospects of their future.

Our program focuses on serving young families, especially those newly arrived in the poor, urban district where we have the center. Many of these families have little experience with formal education and the expectations placed on the children and the parents. The center’s goals include basic preschool education, in-school meals and nutrition information for the families and much love and attention to develop, in the children and also their families, the behavioral skills needed for success in school.

THE MONEY-BOX OF THE POOR

Carmen and Ramona are from Galindo Adentro, a small village in the province of Azua, in the Dominican Republic. Recently, they each received a piglet from the pig farming program of La Sagrada Familia Parish. One day, while we were talking about the care and maintenance of the animal, they mentioned to us that there is a typical saying in the Dominican culture that refers to pigs as “the moneybox of the poor”.

Many people from the parish territory, that comprises Sabana Yegua and its surroundings, do not have stable work that generates regular income for their family’s support. Therefore, the majority of the families cannot save for moments of crisis or scarcity. Generally, people of the region live frugally from one day to the next, earning their sustenance without being able to create any savings for the future. The idea of initiating the pig project to help families like that of Carmen and Ramona by giving them a pig was an attempt to answer to that situation. We know that for many of these families it is difficult to save and put money in a bank account for a future necessity. We also know that any family of scarce means can have a pig on their backyard that can be fed with leftovers or waste that they get from neighbors and their own home and crops.

The family receives the basic investment, which are the pigs, raises them to later sell them, thus generating a little income for the family. Thus, it fulfills the Dominican saying, and the pigs become the money box of the poor. If they don’t have an emergency that requires them to sell ahead of time, and everything goes well, the funds produce a benefit that the family knows well how to use!

MAKING PURSES IN ORDER TO GO TO COLLEGE

Perla Fernández is a motivated, talented and industrious young lady, as this story will show. In order to help finance her university education, she recently joined the purse course offered by La Sagrada Familia parish at its Training Center for women in Sabana Yegua (Dominican Republic). She had previously completed the general sewing and upholstery classes.

Perla’s father is an upholsterer, but they make little profit from his business. She wanted to support her father and also earn extra money to continue studying by attending the university. With a small child, she had to interrupt her studies, but recently she obtained a scholarship to go to college. However, she still needed to find the means to pay for her transportation and school materials, and that is why she registered in the purse course.

In the exhibition of projects completed in the Training Center, where one can buy clothes, sheets, quilts, purses and even upholstered sofas, Perla was able to sell a good number of the purses that she created: with this income, she will be able to pay for her transportation and materials.

Go for it, Perla! You have the energy to now go to College!