After the first seven years as pastor of St. Raphael, in the company of Fr. Franco and Fr. Patricio, under the attentive gaze of Fr. Aldo, I was offered the possibility of working in a university, first as a professor and then as director of the university’s apostolate in the Universidad Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. The task is not small: coordinate 40 professors who teach Theology and Ethics to all the students, accompany the chaplains in their mission and elicit “life” together with the team of university helpers.
After forty years of belonging to the Movement of Communion and Liberation and thirty in the Fraternity of St. Charles, getting close to civil retirement age, I am discovering that the old man can become young again when he follows with simplicity the educative method we have received. There are three pillars that animate and sustain my work in the pastoral mission. The first is that everything can be an occasion for an encounter: a lesson, a coffee, the “two minutes” that they ask you for, crossing paths in the hall, calling persons by their name, responding to something unexpected. The encounter carries within itself the seed of friendship. Opening oneself to the richness of the person, a second pillar emerges little by little: a significant physical place. Thanks to the spaces on which we can rely (a library with a study room, a room for meetings, offices, outside gardens), for the students, going to the university’s apostolate is like being in a home. The relationships became a second, or at times a first, family. In the end, the third pillar: being present in the environment responding to immediate needs: study groups, the gratuity of someone tutoring or helping another study, meetings that help to judge the weeks, invitations to a hike or other activities.
The old man can become young again when he follows with simplicity the educative method we have received.
This year, a friendship with twenty or so students who, despite their different backgrounds and experiences of faith, gave life to the group “Faith and Life” and this was quite significant. For the second year in a row, I proposed to them to go before their companions and teachers with the event “The joy of the faith,” which had for a title: Builders of peace, here and now. It took place on the patio of the Faculties of Medicine and Finance, one of the busiest spots at the university.
If the questions of the students in the first dialogue were direct and profound, the responses of the Nuncio to Paraguay, Msgr. Vincenzo Turturro, left us truly provoked: “We divide men into good and bad, and this is not right. The distinction is between those who feel loved and those who do not feel loved.” “The Church does not resolve conflicts, but creates, rather, the conditions so that men can understand one another.”
The second dialogue, instead, presented experiences of peace “here and now.” Priscilla, who goes every 15 days to visit the inmates of a juvenile prison, decided to major in Criminal Psychology, “not to condemn but to accompany the young people without a family.” Ana Belen told the stories of the many young people saved by this apostolate. Maga, participating in studies together and of the life of the pastorate passed from a harmful “I’ll do it by myself” attitude to the joy of new friends who share her needs and have changed her life.
Kiosks, popular music, a collection of goods for the Foundation of St. Raphael, an exhibit on ecclesial movements and on congregations gave color to the evening.
What a great challenge to be able to welcome and transmit, grasp and educate, and suffer without losing joy! The paths have been laid out and it is our turn to point them out and to walk them ourselves. Even in the university.
