{"id":383481,"date":"2025-07-01T00:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T22:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/?p=383481"},"modified":"2025-06-28T09:01:34","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T07:01:34","slug":"a-glance-that-brings-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/a-glance-that-brings-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"A glance that brings healing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every day we see a great deal of suffering all around us and this can make us feeloverwhelmed and helpless if we do not draw upon deep human values. Sometimes, however,the answer arrives on WhatsApp. This is whath appened to a community that tries to buildunity in a small town in Italy: “…In the hospital where I work there is a young man, a foreigner,who is completely alone and dying. Maybe someone could spend a few minutes with him, to bringsome dignity to this situation?”<\/em> This request was a shock: the responses followed quickly. Themessages from those who were with the man in his last few hours said, “At his bedside weimmediately saw that he was receiving care at the right time and that it was attentive and loving.Really there was nothing for us to to do except be there: he was in a coma and could not benefitfrom our presence.\u201d<\/em>Was staying at the man\u2019s bedside unnecessary and a waste of time? In those fewhours a small community, inside and outside the hospital, accompanied and broughtmeaning to that situation. Who knows if a mother will be able to mourn that son in his owncountry. Surely his \u201cpassing\u201d was not in vain for those who could love that young man whowas no longer unknown. Compassion is a feeling that comes from within, from the depthsof the human heart. It makes us capable of interrupting our busy daily routine of schedulesand appointments and take the initiative to approach others and gaze at them with care,unafraid to \u201ctouch\u201d their wounds.Chiara Lubich explains it with striking simplicity: \u201c<\/em>Let us imagine that we are in theirsituation and treat them as we would like to be treated in their place. Are they hungry? We think – Iam hungry too. And let’s feed them. Is that person experiencing injustice? I am suffering injusticetoo! And let us offer words of comfort and share their sorrows: let\u2019s persevere until they feelenlightened and uplifted. We will slowly see the world around us change.\u201c<\/em> <\/em>1.African wisdom also confirms this in a proverb from the Ivory Coast: “The person whowelcomes a stranger hosts a messenger.”<\/em>This Idea offers us a method of living out true humanism: it makes us aware of ourcommon humanity in which the dignity inherent in every man and woman is reflected. Italso teaches us to courageously go beyond the understanding that \u201ccloseness\u201d isdetermined by physical and cultural contexts. Thinking in this way, it is possible to expandthe boundaries of \u201cus\u201d to the horizon of \u201call\u201d and rediscover the very foundations of sociallife. When we feel we are succumbing to the impact of the suffering all around us, it isimportant to draw upon the help of friends who share our views and accompany us throughlife and so allow ourselves to be healed. Let\u2019s remember, as psychiatrist-psychotherapistRoberto Almada says, \u201cIf the good people give up the battle because of fatigue, our commonhumanity will run the greatest of risks: value impoverishment.\u201d<\/em>2. <\/p>\n\n

1. Chiara Lubich, The Art of Loving<\/em>2. R. Almada, Il burnout del buon samaritano<\/em>, Effat\u00e0 editrice, 2016<\/p>\n\n

Photo: \u00a9 Alexandra_Koch en Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n\n

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THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is currently produced by the Focolare Movement\u2019s \u201cCentre for Dialogue with People of Non religious Beliefs\u201d. It is an initiative that began in 2014 in Uruguay to share with non-believing friends the values of the Word of Life, i.e. the phrase from Scripture that members of the Movement strive to put into practice in their daily lives. Currently, THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is translated into 12 languages and distributed in more than 25 countries, with adaptations of the text according to different cultural sensitivities. dialogue4unity.focolare.org<\/a><\/p>\n\n

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