In the Capital’s Dark Corners

“I come from a small town in the countryside and I just moved to Rome. My arrival in such a big city has also made me meet things that are very different from what I have been accustomed to.

It was difficult for me to see children begging for some money or people immersed in dumpsters searching for something to eat. Not that this is anything new. These things can be seen on many streets and on the TV. But when you come face to face with it, something changes and you find yourself presented with your own personal measure for living the Gospel.

Returning home a few nights ago, I stopped to talk with a guy. He was 23 years old, more or less my own age. He told me about his children, one of whom was about to have surgery and there wasn’t enough money. He told me about the 150 euro he had to pay each month so that he and his wife wouldn’t have to sleep in the back seat of a car. Then there were the difficulties finding employment. Just the same old stories, just the same old excuses to scrape up a few pennies, I thought. But something pushed me to continue.

Therefore I told him that I’d help him to find a job, that he could come to supper with me, and that I’d put him up at my house if his landlord threw him out of his home. I hardly knew what I was saying, but the words were flowing from my heart. I said to myself: What can someone like me do? I’ve just arrived in Rome! When I returned home I prayed for help from the Father. Two days later I received an email that told of a meeting for foreign students who were seeking employment. Here was an answer, a clear sign! I immediately sent a message to the guy, informing him of this opportunity.

More than once it happened that I got home late due of similar delays. And I would be interrogated by my housemates: ‘But why do you stop to talk with these people? What do you care? It doesn’t do any good anyway…’.

Perhaps my answer to them was a superficial one, but what I gathered from it all was revolutionary. I changed my way of acting because ‘everything is for Jesus.’ If you allow Jesus to work on you and change you, if you choose Him as the basis for your life, especially the Jesus who suffered on the Cross for all of us, then it’s Jesus Himself who makes you another Jesus in the dark corners and sufferings of society.”

(E.P. – Italy)