Homeless persons, drug addicts, prostitutes, indigenous peoples…basically, something that is unthinkable. We arrived around 8PM, on a brisk evening, which is unusual in Asunción.
We often come here to the bus terminal for charitable work. We prepare food sacks at the parish and then we bring dinner to those who live on the street. Here one really encounters the face of need. We always begin by going to seek out the persons that we know. By now, in fact, we know where they typically find their refuge: a more protected corner, a little square, within the terminal, an abandoned grove of trees…And when finally we find our various friends, we invite them to dine with us.
This evening, however, was different. We did not bring food; we brought a Cross. We are doing the Way of the Cross. We decide to cover the same route that we do when we invite them to quench their hunger. This time, however, we are bringing another type of nourishment, a gaze towards another kind of need.
We enter into the obscurity of one of the places where they hide and we immediately see the younger ones, already under the effect of some substance, come towards us. They are still able to recognize us and so they join us for the first station. “Christ is sentenced to death.” Among them, they begin to call each other: “It is Jesus! Come on,” they say to each other.
The only light is what I use to read the Gospel. In the darkness, I catch a glimpse of the tears of many, the emotion of “ours” and of “theirs.” I immediately think that the presence of Christ truly moves us and brings us to be one single thing with them. They were tears of unity. Needs, before the Cross, are all equal. “We are the same as those who have cars,” a homeless person once told me.
We go on. The number of those following the Cross, in the meantime, has grown. Yes, they are almost all drug addicts and they are following in silence the steps of the suffering of Christ. I think that no one better than them knows this journey.
They are following in silence the steps of the suffering of Christ. I think that no one better than them knows this journey.
We pray another station before a wall that separates the city from a great field full of trash and vegetation. There other homeless persons “live.” They survive by collecting cans to recycle. I peer over the wall and discover that some of them have approached to listen to the Gospel. The leper colony of today, the persons whom no one sees, are there with us to listen to the words of Jesus. One of them jumps the wall and follows us: “It’s dangerous here, I will accompany you all,” he says.
We follow our itinerary and arrive to a small, dilapidated neighborhood. Every time we pass, we find there a group of loitering men who drink beer and always invite us to hang out with them for a while. This time, they see the Cross arrive and quickly they rise to their feet. One of them lights a candle within a small “grotto.” When I ask them to which saint or Virgin is dedicated that strange shrine, they tell me: “We made it a number of years ago, when we found here on the street an indigenous woman who had died.” Those men are happy that the Lord had finally come to visit that place, marked by dramas that are so mysterious and unjust.
The next station is within the terminal of the bus station. The number of people has tripled. The homeless greet the people who are waiting for the bus. “Good evening,” they said, “We are here with Jesus, you all should come with us to pray.” And so, for that stop, even the persons who work in the terminal and even the indigenous who are there selling their merchandise join uys. Once the station has ended, our friends from the street, politely invite everyone to follow us. And we go on to the deposition of Christ in the tomb.
It was a one-of-a-kind night. That Christ needs men, I thought, is not a slogan. Christ arrives to the world where the Church, that is, we the baptized, have the courage and the strength to pass through the veil of darkness breaking the fear of what is “other.” In the midst of a narcissistic society -and therefore unjust- looking at the others is a great gesture of hope. And looking at the others does not simply mean bringing food. True gratuity comes from belonging to a people, thanks to which we go to places full of need, where by ourselves we would not even be able to set foot.
Normally, after charitable work, I go to eat something with the friends who come. That night, instead, I went home accompanied by everything I had just lived. I thought that my home could be the street or the bus terminal; it wouldn’t change anything as long as I experience that Christ is present and that, being present, He allows me to see His Mercy.
