The Don Orione community has no parish home of its own. Recently, a parish in Palidoro opened its doors to us—a beautiful seaside town about 25 miles from Rome.
With this new location by the sea in mind, I found myself thinking about Nemo: the little fish from the animated film of the same name (which was the centerpiece of a summer camp two years ago at the "Bicoca"). Nemo is an orphaned fish—his mother is gone—and he has a small handicap: an atrophied fin, smaller than the other one.
He was raised by a father who was desperately anxious and protective. On his first day of school, a surge of freedom overtakes him, and he decides to face the first great danger of his life: swimming alone in the open ocean. But he gets caught by a diver, who carries him away to a fish tank in a dental office in Sydney, on the other side of the ocean. There in that aquarium, Nemo meets other fish—creatures born and raised in captivity, locked away between those four glass walls their whole lives, willing to do anything to escape, because "the aquarium changes you inside."
I can't help but compare our Sunday "little houses"—our parish gatherings—to Nemo's aquarium. A sterile place, a more or less faithful copy of reality, where we end up doing the same things over and over, surrounded by the same faces. In the open sea—or better still, in the ocean—you can meet creatures you've never seen before.
I said this at our last community meeting. I told them I haven't been to the gatherings in recent years because I "don't believe in them." The few moments we give each month (or almost) to what we call the "kids"—regardless of their actual age—are wasted behind the four walls of a parish building, where we always end up singing the same songs, doing the same activities, eating the same packed lunches. These moments are wasted not because the activities themselves aren't wonderful and fun—they are—but because by staying indoors, we never get to meet new people. We never get to share these beautiful moments with anyone who has never encountered the reality of disability.
At the meeting, I made a proposal I believe in deeply: to promote what we call the "fourth quarter"—meaning to make it our priority again. In other words, to start having new experiences around our beloved city. We're fortunate to live in Rome: we certainly don't lack for spaces! How wonderful it would be, for example, to organize a gathering at Villa Pamphili, to play with the children and young people on the grass, alongside other families, and to show them that after all, a handicapped person is someone who knows how to have fun, laugh, and play just like everyone else—not a dictionary term to be paired with "Down" as an insult, a synonym for "stupid" or "idiot."
This is why I'd love to organize tours of Rome's churches, attending Mass every Sunday in a different place, with friends and young people who want to take part in a kind of "cultural-religious pilgrimage." We could be accompanied and welcomed by scout groups and seminarians.
Between the aquarium and the ocean, I have no doubt: I choose the ocean.
Emanuele Mendola Rome - Kimata