Some time ago, in another issue of this magazine, I reflected on the meaning of friendship and on a group of young people befriending the children in the "Gesù Bambino" Ward at St. Eusebius Institute.
We were then at the beginning of something new—without precedent not only in Vercelli, but elsewhere as well. Or at least, if similar work was happening elsewhere, we knew nothing of it. For each group and each young person involved, it was an experience of discovery—painful, born in the silence of one's own spirit, carried out without publicity, in secret.
From those early days, through the dedication of many, the "Friends of the Children Group" was born recently. I hold in my hands the small card that each "friend" received at Christmastime, the date chosen for our group's official baptism. On the front, the image of a smiling child, and a few lines of introduction:
"the journey of humanity would be easier if it were traveled by a greater number of good Samaritans"
I dwell on the child's face—Luca—and see in his expression the waiting of so many other children, hungry for love, who call out to us. Then I think of the "good Samaritans," all the young people who have come through the years, up to the most recent ones—those who gave life to this spontaneous group of "friends."
- Read also the testimonies of two young members of the "Friends of Children Group"
Who are these "Samaritans," and what do they seek?
The group is mostly students on the threshold of adulthood and university students. With them are some working people, a few soldiers, and a handful of parents, drawn into this work of service by their own children.
They visit the ward regularly and faithfully, offering simple assistance to children who cannot care for themselves and giving special affection to particular children. What do they seek? To answer that question seriously, we gathered monthly in December and January—young and older, newcomers and veterans—to know each other better, to recognize in one another's eyes the same hunger for what is essential, to share the difficulties and lessons of our service. But above all, first of all, to learn to examine ourselves and to understand our own path toward maturity.
The act of leaving one's ordinary occupations, one's familiar surroundings, and entering a world of pain—a world of severely handicapped children, alongside religious sisters who find the reason for their existence in service to these same children—to find oneself without the usual measures of human interest and formal relationship: all of this cannot help but be, for each person, an experience of profound human significance.
Sandra Zanlungo, 1975