How current is the need for stability and peace! We too, personally and collectively, are going through dark moments in history, which threaten to crush us under the weight of uncertainty and fear about the future.
How can we overcome the temptation to let ourselves be overwhelmed by the difficulties of the present, withdraw into ourselves and cultivate feelings of suspicion and distrust towards others?
A possible response is to "renew" first of all, with courage, our trust that love can do everything. We are encouraged to do so because surely at times we have experienced the support of a helping hand, the presence of someone who has become our neighbor and who shares life's path with us even when it becomes dark, narrow and steep.
This belief does not mean remaining passively waiting. Indeed, it requires us to get busy, to be creative and responsible protagonists in building a "new city", founded on the law of mutual love. A city with open doors, welcoming to all, especially the poor and oppressed.
And on this path we are certain to find as companions many men and women who cultivate in their hearts the universal values of solidarity and the dignity of every person, respecting the cosmos, our "common home".
In the Spanish village of Aljucer, an entire community is busy building relationships
fraternity through forms of open and inclusive participation. They say: “In the summer of 2008 we created a cultural association, with the aim of carrying out various kinds of activities, both on our own initiative and in collaboration with other local associations, to promote spaces for dialogue and international humanitarian projects.
For example, since the first year, we have promoted a solidarity dinner for the project Fraternity with Africa, to finance scholarships for young Africans committed to working in their country for at least five years.
They are dinners that bring together around two hundred people, for which shopkeepers and associations collaborate. We are very happy to have also been working with another association for years. Together we organize an annual event, open to figures from the world of culture, music, painting and literature, but also to exponents of the world of politics, economics and medicine. It is an opportunity for all of them to share life experiences and the deepest reasons for their choices."
Christmas is upon us. Let's celebrate it by being builders of fraternity.
The love we give will free us from limits and slavery and we will see a revolution of love explode capable of transforming the social fabric in which we are immersed.