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An Inter-congregational Community with the Homeless
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At a meeting of RSCJ in my Province in November 2003, I heard someone ask: “Have you seen the letter from Caritas in ‘INFORMA’ (the Provincial Newsletter) asking for an RSCJ to live with the homeless?” I felt something stir within me, and when I went home to my community I read the project:
“Jubilee 2000 Residential Centre”: a hostel for people in need of a home, on account of the circumstances of their lives and of not being welcome in our society. They need somewhere to start a new life, be born again and begin to form part of this society.
There are 60 units for the homeless where they can stay for anything between 6 months and two years, cared for by professional staff (5 social workers and educators) who will help them to integrate into society and into the workforce. Besides the volunteers who come during the day, there will also be an inter-congregational “life group” (4 sisters) who will live and sleep there as “neighbours of our neighbours”, although they have their own community within their Congregation.
An rscj is needed:
- With the right disposition and talents for living together;
- With initiative and skills in conflict resolution;
- With the ability to work in a team;
- With experience and/or sensitivity in the “social” area;
- With flexibility and the capacity to adapt to various tasks and functions.
I felt that this project corresponded deeply with the best of my desires, namely:
- to follow Jesus more closely in his poverty, and be in tune with his preferences
- to take early retirement from my work at the University of Comillas, since I hardly have time to attend to anything else: I often feel that I have already said and written a lot, and now here was a chance to do something, to “put the Bible into practice”. The project does not entail leaving Comillas altogether, nor my other activities (courses, writing…) but from another “address” and with a different rhythm.
- to be able to take part in an inter-congregational project, because I think Religious Life will be very much along these lines in the future, and I feel I have what it takes to try.
I began a discernment with my Provincial; we saw that it seemed to come from the Lord, so I lived through Advent and Christmas with the secret joy of someone who has found a treasure. It was hard to say goodbye to the community, which was closing in July, but I had to go to my new abode on March 1st.
Since then we four sisters: Pepa Garrido, a Crusader Missionary of the Church; Elena Cerdeiras, IBVM; Ermina, Javeriana and I, have been living in a unit forming part of a recently opened 7-storey block, in which the 60 units open onto an inner courtyard, of the “corrala” type. We live and pray together, and are happy and united as we look at the important mission that lies ahead of us.
The neighbours have been arriving: in general migrant families, or Spanish people with children, single mothers, three Romanians who have had limbs amputated as a result of the attack on March 11th…
Our part is to welcome, form a web of relationships, listen a great deal, accompany…It is a special experience to be able to walk a stretch of the road with people who live in precarious situations, yet fill us with admiration at their energy, their resilience, their capacity for hope… We know we can’t smooth their troubles away for them, but at least we can be present to people in extreme situations so that they don’t feel abandoned to their misfortune. As García Roca says, “to act on reality and change it, even in the smallest degree, is the only way to bring home to ourselves that reality can be transformed…”
If anyone is interested, we are at Cerro de la Plata 8, 1° AB. 28007 Madrid. (Metro station Pacifico).
Dolores Aleixandre rscj
Province of Spain Center South