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We are here once again so that we may see with the eyes of our hearts, and so that we may live a strong communion with God and a with each other.
To see with the heart: there are too many young people who are afraid to do so, to look at one’s conscience, but do not be afraid, we mustn’t have fear of ourselves!
The theme that the Holy Father chose for the WYD in Sidney was “The power of the Holy Spirit will come upon you and you will be my witnesses” (Acts. 1, 8)
It means that all those who are embarrassed to be witnesses, to announce that they have encountered Jesus, to say “I believe that Jesus is the Son of the risen God”, all those, do a great harm to themselves, because they are still slaves to fear, locked in the shame of past humiliations.
We need therefore, to have the courage of truth, of simplicity, of humility.
My experience, as many of you know, is that of having always been in expectation of the Holy Spirit, welcoming life as it presents itself. Now and again I’m asked, “Elvira, have you made projects?” I never did any such thing, but I listened and I listen with the heart, with the mind, with strength, with the will, with sacrifice, with love, with work, with fatigue...in every and any moment I desire to listen to the Holy Spirit and afterwards we begin to walk together.
So, I’m here to tell my story, my life, to testify to the truth of these words “The power of the Holy Spirit will come upon you”.
At nineteen years of age the Lord called me from a poor and emarginated immigrant family, and I entered a convent, in a Congregation where they serve the poor. It was a beautiful experience, as it is now, because serving the poor we’re not paid, we can’t ask for money...why? Because when you give something of yourself, that something grows always into more, you become the richest person in the word!
Then, at a certain moment, after twenty beautiful years lived in my Community, I began to have in my heart not one voice but a thousand voices that said “Elvira sacrifice, sacrifice! The youth are wandering the streets; the youth are dying in the stations, upon the streets, in the dirt!” Thus, after being disturbed over and over, I had the courage to tell my superiors and this story was born, that also I neither know nor understand fully because I’m the first one to be walking this path with them, among them, a people of sinners: drug addicts.
Drug addicts willingly put up masks to demonstrate that they are “someone”, to seem something more and as such they are ashamed of the truth, of their fragility, they have difficulty in opening up and they keep inside those secrets that then become bad for them.
Therefore I want to say to the young people, that we no longer need to be ashamed of our family history, of our experience!
Just think, that up until twenty two years of age, I also was ashamed of my family, because we were poor: nine at home and a lot of misery. The greatest humiliation was the alcoholic dependency of my father and I remember that I was at elementary school and papa would come to pick me up with a bicycle and all the other children would make fun of me because he was drunk. They would tell me the truth, but I was embarrassed.
Today I am no longer afraid to say that my father was an alcoholic because finally I have revaluated it. I understood that the period that I lived in poverty was my school of life, my university and my father was the instrument in the hands of God to educate me in sacrifice, in tenacity, in obedience, in courage.
I experience first hand that it is not true that children need everything! For this reason I know well that it is a sacrilege when we do not educate our children, also in suffering, to renounce, to welcome life as it is, as it comes. Parents do not have the will to look them in the eye, to correct them, to educate them, to suffer with them and they give them everything. The child therefore thinks: “...but...if I command my parents...what kind of parents do I have?”
All of this tells us that the problem is not drugs. It is us adults, parents that have become more egoistic, more ambitious, that we have become attached to work, to the god of money that will put all in their graves. We need to reflect upon all of this, to stop and listen to what life wants to teach us. What does the displacement of young people today tell us? It tells us that we do not pray well, that we do not pray in the truth, that we continue to pretend to be Christians.
Because it is prayer that makes one see the truth of oneself, that asks you to change; but it depends how you have prayed, why you have prayed, to whom you have prayed! If when we come out of the Church we have the same face as to when we entered it, it means we do not pray well.
For this reason, the first suggestion we made to our youth was prayer, and don’t think that they came into Community with a spontaneous will, they came because the mothers had expired, the fathers would send them away from home and they found themselves alone, they were no longer able to tell lies to mum and dad, so they asked for help: they were all upon the cross, but that cross brought them here.
They had the experience that it is the cross that carries us! And we today can say thank you to the cross, upon which bled our King, our Saviour, Him who gave His life and continues to give inner life.
Thus the cross is not heavy when you live it in the truth. Let us then ask ourselves, if in the family you have a great cross, heavy, how do you live it? In these twenty-five years of Community we have understood that the cross with the Crucified carries us; for this reason we want to embrace and love that cross that we have at home!
My mother was faithful to her husband for fifty-two years and people would say: “What’s she doing with this man who is always drunk! ...let him go!”
Also I would say: “Mamma how did you stay with papa without him bringing home a lira, because he didn’t work!”
And my mother would respond to me “If I had sent your father away, when you would come home from school and your teacher would ask you to do the theme “Describe your family”, who would you have put in the place of papa?”. My mother was thinking of us! And she would add: “I said yes, not the others”. So let us think well about our history and let us re-live it in the Love that Jesus has given us and taught us going to the cross for us. Our Lady received from Him the call to be Mother and today She has called us to walk with Her, but let’s not take up her invite superficially. Let’s say with Her our “Yes” and permit Jesus to enter into our interior life.
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