“I returned to Peru”
After his first month on mission, Combonian Fr. Alessio Geraci writes to us from Peru to tell us about his impact with the people…
Hello, friends! I am “back” on mission in Peru, although as people say, “you actually never left”!
It has been three very intense weeks, full of joy, no sorrow yet (but they will come, because life is alternation and coexistence between joy and sorrow) and a lot of life given and received.
For the past year and a half, I have been lulled by the “dream” of opening a new mission in the Peruvian forest, in the “deep” Amazon.
But mission is a gift, and it is not just a phrase, a slogan, something you say just to say it. It is the truth. So the reality has been different from the dream!
My “new” mission is the same where I was before, the parish in the southern suburbs of Lima, where I have already lived, where I have loved and been loved, where I “didn’t want to go” to get out of my comfort zone, and seriously put myself out there at 41!
But that is precisely where God sent me. And I am here with joy, so that where God has planted me, I may flourish with all my people.
I came here keeping my promise to my new superior not to say anything about my new mission to the people until I arrived.
It was a huge surprise to them. And they overwhelmed me and flooded me with love. As I had already experienced last year when I came back for three weeks with the youth missionary camp.
This time I came back to stay! And to work hard! Indeed, there is no shortage of work.
The parish
This is a parish on the outskirts of the suburbs: a very large area that includes 100,000 people, and 13 Christian communities.
Each has its own little church, its own coordinator or coordinator, and a whole host of pastoral agents working hard for the Kingdom of God.
The parish on November 17 turned 29 years old.
The advantage I have is that I know the area and the people well.
In these pandemic years, people’s participation has dropped significantly, and the reality before my eyes is quite different from the parish I left 5 years ago. I prefer to walk if I can, for exercise but mostly to meet people.
And along the way people recognize you, greet you, ask you for a blessing or invite you for something to eat.
We are on the outskirts of the suburbs, so in some areas, especially those that are high up on the hill, there is a “shortage” of basic services such as electric light, drinking water or similar.
The word I’m making my own most these days is sharing, since sometimes in the house where we live as a religious community, the electric light goes out and the water doesn’t come out of the taps, and we have to wait for it to come back or collect water in basins first.
This is also making common cause. I would have felt ashamed and very embarrassed to live in a house with all the comforts if my people live in poverty.
People are simple, humble….that’s why the language I use in homilies is as well, trying to involve them as much as I can, making them feel like participants and not passive spectators of a show.
But above all I try to convey the image of a joyful God who calls us to joy, to the constant celebration of life because he is the God of Life, who has conquered, forever, death.
For this reason, the celebration never lacks my moments of jokes and jokers that serve me in the homily to make the ancient and ever-new message of God’s Word better understood.
Source and image
- Father Alessio Geraci