Solidarity in a garden
in Burundi
Yesterday when I was telling my spiritual director about my new role of driving friends in need of a ride to appointments he told me to reflect on the story of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel. This is a story where a man attacked by bandits is left half-dead on the road. A ‘priest’ and a Levite, two significant persons in the Jewish faith, see him but, in a hurry, pass him by. A Samaritan, a non-Jew foreigner, sees the man and is moved with compassion and helps the man in distress. Jesus tells this parable when he is asked by a scribe, another Jewish official, what is the most basic commandment in life.
Today a friend called saying she had an injury and needed to see her doctor. At the clinic I met someone I knew when I was a youth minister some years back. This woman, a mother of one of the youth, despite suffering from a debilitating illness and being poor, was and is a very giving person. In our conversation in the waiting room she told me the story how she drove by a disabled homeless man and felt compelled to drive around the block to help the person. She gave him some food she had in the car and the little money she had on her. The man took her hand in thanks and their eyes met. She felt a feeling she had never experienced. She felt something happened to her at that moment that changed her life.
After she went to her appointment and I was still waiting for my other friend, I started to read an article on Evangelization by Father Moreno S.J., one of the Jesuit Martyrs of El Salvador. He uses this same parable of the Samaritan to explain the meaning of solidarity. The ‘priest’ and Levite saw the man in the road but their way of looking was not enough for them to stop. The Samaritan saw the injured man, he explains, in a compassionate way; he identified with the pain and passion of the suffering man. By his way of seeing with the eyes of compassion he was compelled to be in solidarity with the injured person and to assist him. Father Moreno S.J., who gave his own life in solidarity with the poor of El Salvador, says this solidarity with the poor and suffering is at the heart of evangelization.
This afternoon working in the gardens around my house, I kept thinking about these experiences and this article. Coming into the house I tried to find an electronic copy of the article, even contacting a Jesuit from El Salvador. The article I read is in a paperback book that is in a library book that is past due. I have not found one yet but when I do or make one, I will put it on the Featured Articles.
Concepts like “preferential option for the poor”, solidarity and evangelization are, like seeds planted in the garden, beginning to take root in my life and grow in the garden of everyday life.
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