To accept my fragility is to take the risk of Hospitality”

Sixty years in the service of Hospitality, 60 years during which I took the risk of  following Christ in the fragility of living, 60 years during which I took St John of God as a model. I remember my first “Yes”. It even seems it was yesterday. Thinking about it, I come to the conclusion that to “say YES” is to dare to live out one’s own humanity to the full.  And to do so not just despite one’s fragility but through one’s fragility. There was probably something in my childhood that happened to confirm me in my decision to put myself in the service of the poorest. I see myself sick with worry about something that happened to someone close, my family, a priest, a face, or again I see myself indignant and filled with revulsion at situations I considered unacceptable, feeling something crucial was at stake, something that called into question the very dignity of humanity. I don’t remember. But that level of indignation about the trials of others implies experiencing such troubles oneself in one way or another. To respond to the most vulnerable when they ask for help and to stand by their side presupposes that one has not only been touched by the grace of God, but also been stricken to the depths of one’s being by the poor and the sick. The lesson of the Good Samaritan in the Gospel is an interesting one: first of all you have to approach close enough to the other person, just as St John of God did. Compassion, for instance, does not mean putting oneself in someone else’s shoes (that is never possible) but rather to accept “being with the other” in his trials and to become a real travelling companion, like the Good Samaritan and St John of God... And so, in accepting to be vulnerable in front of others you make hospitality possible. To be received by someone, to be welcomed by them, to exchange in an authentic manner … often requires that one acknowledges oneself to be poor and vulnerable. That is the fruit of my meditation today