Each person can make their own contribution to building fraternity around them: even if we are "small", apparently without special qualities or titles, we are always able to bear witness to a concrete love for those around us.
We have all received attention, care or forgiveness from other people; we can all give something to others and allow them to experience the tenderness of fraternal gestures that can change a man's life.
Chiara Lubich always told us that it doesn't matter whether we can give a lot or a little. What matters is "how" we give, how much love we put into a small gesture of attention towards others. Sometimes it is enough to offer a glass of water, and this gesture, if done out of love, can mark the beginning of a new relationship that changes the lives of those who give and those who receive.
Let us then rediscover the value of "how" to carry out our actions, every action: household or field chores, office tasks or the efficient completion of bureaucratic procedures, relationships with fellow students, every initiative relating to responsibilities in the civil, political and religious spheres.
Everything we do can be transformed into an attentive and precious service that can contribute to healing conflicts, removing injustices, satisfying fundamental human rights, creating relationships of fraternal communion and sharing. Because we will have new eyes to see what others need and we will be able to help them in a creative and generous way. And in this way relationships of reciprocity will be born which are the basis of every vital experience, where talents will circulate and the joy within us will multiply because "there is more joy in giving than in receiving".
It is therefore necessary to be in front of every man and woman we meet with an open and generous heart, overcoming our categories and preventing our judgments from germinating, knowing that they are the cause of every small or large conflict and of the shattering of the social body.
In this way, experiences of active and responsible collaboration oriented towards the common good can arise in our environments, starting from the small things of every day.
Manuel's experience from Australia is significant:
"I left my job in the Philippines and went to Australia to be with my family. There I found work on a construction site as a cleaner, responsible for the catering hall, changing rooms and offices. A very different occupation from what I had done before as an engineer.
Initially I had to take a step internally to not get discouraged and not feel frustrated: in the certainty that "nothing is small than what is done for love", and I understood that every job can be lived with dignity if we put ourselves in a true attitude of service for the people who pass by us. From that moment the canteen, where I met a multitude of people every day, became my little construction site where I could build "that world united in brotherhood" which for some time had become my ideal of life.
I discovered the importance and beauty of "serving". That handing out of the tray or taking it away at the end of lunch, the sweeping, the putting everything back in order, were concretely small acts of love for those who used the canteen every day.
It was this awareness that transformed my way of being: yes, I was no longer an engineer who built houses or roads, but an engineer who contributed to making that public service efficient and dignified for those who used it.
Just as when faced with aggressive or indifferent behavior, I tried not to judge, to understand the needs of those around me, I remained calm and did not lose patience.
Every day a new adventure and little by little I realized that I felt satisfied, and I seemed to glimpse an atmosphere of greater serenity and harmony in the canteen.
To my great surprise, new relationships were born, some friendships, and some of these friends even stopped with me after the service to help me tidy up."[1]
[1] taken from a collection of testimonies edited by S. Pellegrini, G. Salerno, M. Caporati