Focolare Movement

A travelling bag hanging on the door

Aug 10, 2002

The "fioretti"

We are in Innsbruck, in the middle of winter. It’s 10:00p.m. and it’s freezing cold outside. I put on my warm windbreaker and set out quickly for home. A young man stops me and asks me to buy his heater for 300 shillings. He explains to me that if he doesn’t pay up his boarding expenses by the end of the day, the landlady is going to put him out on the street. My first reaction is: “I’m sorry, but I can’t.” I have in my wallet exactly 323 shillings, enough money to cover my expenses for the second half of February. Every shilling is already accounted for to buy what I need like bread, butter, and so on. My friends are away for a winter holiday and I can’t ask anyone else for a loan. While I continue walking, it occurs to me that I have at least a warm room, whereas that man has nothing at all. I remember the words of the Gospel: “Give and gifts will be given to you”. I turn around and call out to him; I give him the 300 shillings; he can keep the heater for himself. While I’m on my way home, a sense of anxiety begins to come over me: I really don’t know how I am going to reach the end of the month. But as soon as I arrived, what do I find? A large travelling bag hanging on the door of my room. Surprise! It contains bread, smoked ham, eggs, cheese, honey, butter: all things that a hungry student dreams of. To this day I don’t know who hung that travelling bag on the door of my room.

___

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe to Newsletter

Thought of the day

Related post

In the same boat: a journey toward peace

In the same boat: a journey toward peace

8 months of navigation, 30 ports, 200 young people. The ship for peace, ‘Bel Espoir’ set sail in March 2025 from Barcelona (Spain) and will continue its voyage until October. Its route will link five shores of the Mediterranean. On board, eight groups of twenty-five young people of various nationalities, cultures and religions that share a common desire to build a better world. They will live together and get to know each other, amid debates and personal experiences, tackling new issues at each stop. Among them are traveling twenty Living Peace ambassadors and other young people from the Focolare Movement. Bertha from Lebanon shares her experience. She is involved in the MediterraNEW project which works for the education of young people, predominately migrants in the Mediterranean.