The Gospel: Reciprocal love before everything else.

Unemployed
The factory has for some time now been showing signs of great difficulty.  We found ourselves on the street without any possibility of obtaining any aid in time from the unemployment fund or from other sources of providence. Unemployed, without doing anything at home, I was entering into a deep feeling of frustration and uselessness. We were living on the salary of my wife. Then, certainly helped by our faith, I told myself that I could use my time to do odd jobs around the house that my wife had been asking me to do. So I started to repaint the doors and windows, put up the wallpaper… The other members of the family also got excited about it and they started to help me. It wasn’t important anymore to bring home a salary, but the real capital which the family needed was love, unemployed or not, I could love. L. R. – Italia

Human justice
n spite of the fact that I had prepared myself with the best of intentions, this Monday the audience at the court hearing was sad and lifeless. At the end of the morning I was discouraged by this state of justice that sometimes is so easy to just get over with. I felt that I had to do something. In the meantime the last defendant presented himself. He seemed much older than his age. He was already imprisoned before and this time he was caught with a stolen car. I came to know from him that when he left prison, he was able to get a regular job; his employer was satisfied with his performance. So I modified my closing argument and I asked the court for a prison sentence to be enforced during his annual leave. In this way he could keep his job. The court accepted this. A few days later, a television journalist telephoned me expressing his surprise at my action. I answered him that I just did my job, using all the resources of the law. During the television program, that journalist recounted the fact concluding in this way: «Applying the law with heart and intelligence can make justice more human». A.B. F. –Francia

Builder of peace
I am a seminarian. In the difficult situation of ethnic conflict in my Country, my village too was divided. Two factions were fighting in the absence of any police presence. Even if I knew of the risks that I faced, I asked God the strength to be a builder of unity among my people  and, going through a barricade of tree trunks on the road, I was able to reach one of the two groups that took refuge in the parish grounds. I asked to speak to them and I was able to tell them sincerely how unfounded were the reasons for this hate and division.  After listening to me, the asked me to also go and talk to the other group. Maybe I was convincing, because in the end everyone went back to live together. Gilbert – Burundi

Taken from: Il Vangelo del giorno (The Gospel of the day), Città Nuova Publishing House.