few weeks ago I returned to Sao Paulo, Brazil, for a visit to the parish where I
worked for several years. In the
center of the city traffic was chaotic, the streets were overcrowded, and have
been invaded by street vendors. Pickpockets
are also abundant, and you have to guard pocketbooks and wallets.
Sides of buildings are covered with political posters, all selling hope
where one sense the pulse of despair. Everything
speaks of the fragility of these people’ lives and of
their fear of the future.
It’s winter time there now, humid and cold. Today it’s one of those dreary drizzly days. At the stop lights beggars of every age ask for a handout. I feel uncomfortable. At one red light, a boy, ten to twelve, in rags, with a suffering face, knocks on the car window. I cautiously open the window a bit, and the child blurts out to me: “Tio (“Uncle” – that’s how children in Brazil call any stranger), this is not an assault: I’m only hungry!” These words plunge into my heart. How hard it is to hear those words, “I’m hungry!”
Why is there so much hunger in the world? Why are there so many kinds of hunger and of need which destroy human beings around us? Hunger for bread, for love, for education, for acceptance, for shelter, for health… Hunger can take hold of a human being and can make of him a rebel and violent against the unjust structures which generate so many victims of selfishness.
One cannot understand hunger unless, once in life, one has had the misfortune to feel its pangs for lack of food. I confess that, as a child – during World War II in Italy – more than once there was nothing on the table. I remember during one winter aunt Mariana, to whom I had been entrusted and myself survived the winter for two months on an onion a day, cooked under the warm ashes of the fireplace. But outside of that time, I’ve felt hunger pangs only in my fastings, which, to tell the truth, are not many.
You cannot describe hunger and speak of its effects with the attitude of researchers and statistics. And you cannot speak of the geography of hunger which grows in the world, after a black-tie banquet offered at the U.N. That talk is an offense to those who go without food on a daily basis. It’s necessary to ask ourselves. Why is there so much hunger in the world? Why are there so many kinds of hunger and of need which destroy human beings around us? Hunger for bread, for love, for education, for acceptance, for shelter, for health… Hunger can take hold of a human being and can make of him a rebel and violent against the unjust structures which generate so many victims of selfishness.
Rather than a thorn in our conscience, hunger is a social human problem which we all, and not just the politicians, are called upon to tackle for a solution. At certain moments when we sense despair, the cry of the hungry gives rise to doubt of the very goodness of God who allows millions of human beings come into this world, supposedly under the sign of suffering. But, at saner and more sacred moments, when we enter into our hearts in dialog with ourselves, the conclusions we come to are quite different. Hunger in the world is not the doing or the will of a God who is love. Hunger in the world, which in its scandalous proportions touch even those with a minimum of human sensibility, is fruit of the greed and human selfishness we carry within us and which obfuscate our understanding of others’ needs. Each of us, we don’t live on a lonely island or in a desert. We live every day in contact with others, and we have eyes to see and ears to hear of the needs of others, and a heart to feel compassion for those who suffer.
It’s up to us to run up our sleeves and see to it that hunger, misery and fear be gone from our midst. To make our own the Gospel plan, at one with all who are left on the margins of life and society. To create a new hope that leads us all to take on courageously the building up of God’s reign, which is not just a problem of bread and drink, but of peace, justice and interior well-being. One cannot be happy without food on the table and without work and medical assistance when sickness comes. To this end the Gospel invites us not to an idealized and platonic love, but to a love which becomes gesture and is wrapped in human flesh as it did in the person of Jesus Christ who lived as example before us.
The child who knocked at my car window didn’t remind me of my faith; that hungry child reminded me of my humanity and that, as a human being, I’m called to open my eyes to help, and that my omission is responsible for many of so many criminal acts of my brothers and sisters.
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)