other,
hear me tonight!
I’ve always dreamed of a mother like you...
Our African mothers are good, as you know, but they have always so many worries and so many pains with their children! You, instead, are all for us.
Perhaps you are more for your children of Africa than for all the other children of the world. Didn’t you come to seek refuge in our home when they expelled you from your country? You could have gone toward the north, toward the east, or the west; rather you took the road toward the south, you chose our Africa.
When you prepared food, you too, like us, would stoop in front of a small wood fire and a terracotta pot. When you wanted some water, you did not have shining
faucets, you simply went to the public fountain, and then home singing, the jar balancing on your shoulders, walking, as we do, barefoot on the pebbles.
And when Joseph had no work perhaps you suffered hunger pangs as we do…
This is why you can understand how much we need
you.
As your Mother, none more than the other children, we need your joy, so different from those reckless delirious dances of ours.
Your joy comes from your work and from your own self-forgetfulness.
Virgin Mary, tonight, my heart is full of desires.
Take then all in your hands of a Mother.
Thank You.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)