From Honduras: God Speaks in Many Voices
Dear Mariangela,
I write to greet you and tell you how much I hope you'll continue your work with Ombre e Luci. You've taught me so much about handicapped people, about myself, and about how to be a good friend to them and to their parents. We keep following the group in Tocoa and growing the number of Faith and Light communities here in Honduras by God's grace. The challenge is finding young people willing to be friends to these young men and women. I'm sending you a reflection on our special friends here in Central America, written by my Jesuit brother Miguel Vasquez. Greetings to the community at S. Silvia. We are united in prayer and in the work of Faith and Light. Once again, thank you for the magazine. Keep going. May God bless you all in your work. Peace and goodness.
Fr. Roberto Grimaldi, Jesuit
God's Tenderness Toward Us
The birth of a child with limitations is received in a special way among indigenous peoples in the Americas.
The Ngobe-Buglé people of Panama hold deep spiritual traditions. To those of us living in a globalized world shaped by Western development and civilization, it can seem backward.
They hold firm conviction that just as God spoke to the world through the Jewish people, God spoke at other times to the Ngobe-Buglé people. God sent them Prophets, Men and Women to guide and direct them. For this people, God revealed himself as Father and Mother. The prophet Mirono is their image of the prophet, like Moses the liberator in the Bible. But Mirono Kronomo is described as a man with deformities of body and face, resembling an animal or a bird.
When a child is born with deformations or limitations, the community sees it as a sign from God. In their tradition, such children are considered great messengers of God's tenderness. The neighbors gather, the community comes together, the elders assemble. Visits continue all day long, and at night a vigil is held. There is the ritual of drinking cacao, a sacred drink, the drink of the gods. If the child survives, it is seen as a divine sign. If the child dies, the question and reflection remain: what was God saying to us through this messenger who passed among us?
I knew a boy in the community of Cerro Otoe named Ildefonso Montezuma, known to everyone as Ponto. Handicapped, he could neither walk nor speak. But whenever I visited, he would stammer and make an effort to greet me, saying: "Hello, Miguel, how are you?"
I would answer: "I'm well, Ponto, very well. And you?"
He would reply: "Good. And your family?"
That was the whole of his speech. Nothing more. Then he would stammer a song he had often heard from his grandparents: "There is a people who live very happy, this people is the people of God." Dead tired after walking six hours to reach this community, that conversation stirred memories of my own family, and that song gave me new life.
I knew another boy, Luisito Escalante, in the community of Nombre de Jesus in El Salvador. He walks, he watches you, he reaches out his hand. His mother, Doña Concepción de Escalante, is the only one who can communicate with him in their own mother-and-son language, unique to the two of them. During twelve years of civil war, Luisito's house was always a special hearth where so many people coming down from the mountains seeking help always found welcome, kindness, a place to sleep, a reason to go on living and fighting. Now, after twelve years, when the armed conflict has ended, that house remains special. Luisito is a man now, still with his eyes fixed, walking, watching. His mother, generous as ever, serves the community and the church in pastoral work. Many people, without understanding why, still visit their house. There is something special there.
We often get it wrong. When we see a child like this, we are moved and feel pity, we give charity and move on. That's the mistake. If we look deeper, we can discover what our ancestors knew and what remains a sign in our time: God's tenderness toward us, reflected in the most vulnerable. In our system of world disorder, we need them for nothing. And so we exclude them, they count for nothing. We eliminate them as was done in the last century to create a select race that ends up becoming very savage.
Fr. Miguel Vasquez, Jesuit
Disability in Germany
After many years working with Ombre e Luci in Rome, I had to move to Germany. After a few months, people with disabilities found me. What a wonderful evening, a few days ago, finding myself at the theater with a mixed group of disabled and non-disabled people on stage. I thought back to the Beehive in Rome, its "Christopher Columbus"... I knew one member of this group of "artists," an educator, and I asked her right away if I could ask her some questions after the performance. The next day we met. I had prepared six questions about their work.
We spent an hour and a half together. I should mention that this young woman, Yasmin, has a German mother and an Afghan, Muslim father.
The story they performed was certainly well done, but it had put me on guard for its distance from reality and its aggression. Yasmin understood my questions perfectly, my doubts, my criticisms. I told her I had worked in Italy with a Catholic group. We discussed at length, and finally she said: "You're right. If I had a child with a disability, I would rather see him in your hands."
I don't want us to be proud. We all make mistakes, but finding myself so in agreement with Yasmin gave me the desire to keep looking for connections here in Hamburg, to understand how people with disabilities find their place in German society.
I'll send you my next discoveries and reflections.
Nicole Schulthes
A "Dream" as Prize
To the friends of Ombre e Luci, I send my most sincere thanks for allowing my husband Carlo and me to experience something beautiful as guests at the convent of the Augustinian fathers in S. Gimignano. It was our prize for the winning text in the contest your magazine held, dedicated to our beloved daughter "Ilaria" (whom we always carry in our hearts!). Fr. Brian is surely a special person and welcomed us at once as friends, making us feel part of his "family." He holds great esteem for you and for the friends of the Faith and Light association and is sensitive to the problems of disabled people... truly a good friend! From the heart, thank you for letting us live a "dream." A fraternal embrace.
Donatella Marazzini
I Am a Father in a Faith and Light Community
Hello, I'm Lello, father of Pasquale, who is twenty-one and mentally disabled since he was four months old. We belong to the "Il Germoglio" community in Cardito (Naples). Let me briefly tell you about my experience with Faith and Light.
I came to know Faith and Light by chance—though I'm convinced nothing truly happens by chance. It was spring 2003 when a family friend came to my house with a priest, Don Giorgio, and suggested the possibility of joining a Faith and Light community that had just been formed, supported by the Sacro Cuore parish in Cardito.
My wife, always the unshakeable rock of our family, was immediately enthusiastic and accepted. I, in absolute indifference, did not object.
For the first months I always invented an excuse not to attend community meetings. And on the rare occasions when I had to attend, I felt as uncomfortable as possible. Meanwhile I noticed my wife, my son, and another daughter (now seventeen) were happier than ever.
After about six months, the spark ignited for Faith and Light. Reluctant as I was, I attended the 2003 Harvest Festival, telling my wife beforehand that I'd leave at lunchtime. When people from all the communities arrived—more than a hundred—I stood stunned by the naturalness, love, solidarity, and affection that filled the air. I began asking who they were, what role they had, how the day would unfold. I asked myself: "Could it be that I'm the only abnormal one here?"
I saw that everyone, including my family, was having fun, socializing, exchanging signs of affection, smiling. At lunchtime I left alone as I'd planned, reassuring my wife I'd return in the evening to pick them up at the end of the festival.
The drive back home was pure torment. The farther I drove, the more I felt I missed all those people. I wanted to turn around and go back to them, to celebrate with them, and perhaps to ask forgiveness for my indifference until that moment.
From then on I took off the "mask." The Lord willed that in that community, together with my family, I became an example to everyone, the "father" to all the young people. I became the representative of "IL GERMOGLIO" for regional activities and the chief collaborator of the wonderful Don Giorgio, whom I will never stop thanking for the day he came to our house and offered us love, solidarity, and affection.
Today I can say with absolute certainty that Faith and Light is a great prophecy, an immense gift from the Lord, a great "invention" through which he has restored to young people and their parents the dignity and love that will help them overcome all the difficult moments that come along the path of their existence.
Thank you, Faith and Light. Thank you, Lord.
Lello Mele