Sowing mercy
From Rivarolo del Re ed Uniti (CR), Father Francesco Zambotti, president of the “La Tenda di Cristo” Association, writes to us
Introduction
“I went up there, I dusted the sky with my hand and anxiety draws the Father’s gaze, I said to myself, I tread a path, I groan waiting to melt into you. For I felt your breath, my heart throbs and aches. I hunger for you: bread.”
“I am a little mountain flower waiting to be plucked. Your intense love is like must pressed by young feet in celebration; you have passed over and your warmth is left in your hands, empty, like a groaning desert. The brooms, little hours of prayer, I saw them burst with sunshine to revive bread.”
It was with this feeling of mercy that, 40 years ago, I began to share our time (I care) among the poorest of the poor.
In agreement with my superiors, without a penny, I began to live with them, believing strongly in Heaven and Divine Providence.
Prayer always illuminated my steps: still, I live by the day, trying to read God’s will as much as possible and accepting the difficulties I encounter.
On October 15, 1985, the Association of “La Tenda di Cristo” was established in Cremona, Italy.
Various communities were thus born in Italy, Brazil and Mexico.
Recently, I visited together with Pierangela, Vice President of the Association, the communities in Brazil present since 1994 and dedicated to taking in abandoned children or AIDS patients.
Brazil is a land open to fraternity, inhabited by good people, but plagued by poverty and driven, as everywhere, by the thirst for money that creates divisions and selfishness of all kinds.
The Tent of Christ has chosen to operate in the states of Sao Paulo and Ceará, in the northeast of the “good giant.”
One hypothesis about the origin of the name “Brazil” is that it comes from the popular name in Portuguese for pernambuco, a tree of the Fabaceae family, native to the virgin forest (Mata Atlantica) that completely covered the nation’s coastal regions.
“Pau brasil” literally means ”bracile tree.”
The purpose of the recent trip was to reorganize the two houses in Aquiraz (Fortaleza) designed to take in women victims of violence and street children, in order to be able to provide them with primary care, as well as educational and recreational moments. They also lend themselves to the organization of spiritual meetings and reflection on our Catholic religion.
The Brazilian people are very prone to live spirituality: they are always in constant search of supports that will help them survive that poverty that humiliates and pushes them, unfortunately, into delinquency and its circuits.
The Sao Paulo Community is dedicated to the care of children, particularly infants, discharged from the Emilio Ribas Children’s Hospital. The Association serving it, formed by local citizens, has become almost autonomous.
The construction of this Community engaged Italian volunteer groups for 4 months, animated by the Providence that “led the way.”
The educational method
The Tent of Christ follows practically to the letter the educational method expressed in the works of mercy intended by the Church.
In the concept of Mercy is fully found the imitation of Christ as a gift of Self, in total gratuity; for this reason, volunteerism has always been the “trump card” in our Association.
Although it is not now possible to rely exclusively on volunteer work, with the hired workers, great care is taken to ensure that the mentality of giving remains the foundation of their actions, including technical ones.
Mercy, then, as an expression of mutual exchange, also transmitted to those who are in the condition of need.
In this way, an “educational chain”-simple but realistic and concrete-is developed and transmitted up to the realization of the gesture made “as if it were addressed to Jesus himself.”
Thus, the “Tent of Christ,” present thanks to the various communities scattered throughout the world, is committed to sowing God’s mercy through actions that reach the good soil, the stony soil, the soil inhabited by the thorns of violence, entrusting God the Father with the Wisdom of welcoming and bearing fruit.
Father Francesco Zambotti
(President Ass. La Tenda di Cristo)
Source and images