5. Fr. Luigi Pieretti, among Lucca’s first fd | Letters from the mission
The account of the missionary life of Fr. Luigi Pieretti, fidei donum of the diocese of Lucca in Brazil, continues
Fr. Pieretti, in August 1979, has finally arrived at his destination, but he soon realizes that Brazil will instead be his starting point toward a new life and a new mission.
And this is indeed what he recounts in the first letters he writes.
ne of them is addressed to his friends in Torre del Lago (Lucca) and talks about the city of Salvador and his first impressions…
We publish excerpts from it:
The environment that surrounds us in these neighborhoods distracts us from thinking about our own problems….
It is a very harsh reality, difficult to accept….
Salvador has about 1.5 million inhabitants.
It has developed and modern areas,
but most of the city consists of hills filled with small houses
(if you can call them that) and many of them are made of clay, plastered and painted white.
There is no sewage system and all the physiological waste from the houses
are dumped in the streets of the hills, causing a horrible stench.
Many people do not have a job or a steady job.
And every job is poorly paid.
The monthly salary is 1600 cruzeiros (a cruise is worth 30 Italian liras),
but the cost of living is high.
I don’t know how people manage to save their lives.
Many children cannot go to school,
either because there are no schools or because of family problems.
Children can be seen working in various parts of the city,
in parking lots, cleaning car windows or looking for other jobs;
it is not difficult to see children on those streets with rotten water….
The Lucca missionary cannot fathom so much poverty.
He observes, he describes, but his heart does not want to give up. It is the children, above all, who capture his attention.
Children so different from those he left behind in the West — who have to work for a living, who have no rights.
However, bitterness over so many situations and issues does not deprive him of the joy of being there: an aspect that he does not fail to emphasize in another of his letters:
Above all, I want to share with you
my joy of feeling part,
close, in solidarity with the poor….
There is no shortage of poor people here. Everywhere you turn,
‘is always the same spectacle.
Perhaps there is the opposite danger here to that of Italy:
here we have become so accustomed to poverty
that it almost doesn’t make an impression anymore, it seems natural.
As Fr. Luigi says, it is not easy. First, because the risk is to get used to it and, second, because we need to arm ourselves with a lot of faith and be united in prayer….
Although this reality fills me with joy
and gives meaning to my vocation and life,
it is not without its difficulties.
It is one thing to talk about the poor from afar
and another to be among them.
United in prayer,
we will feel united in the same choice,
even if we are in different places,
so that, as the psalm says:
“The name of the Lord be praised in the East and in the West.”