A new stage in the pilgrimage of trust

When they arrived, the Chile they discovered was going through the trials of difficult political and social situations, marked above all by the student conflict where thousands of students demonstrated to demand free education of high quality for everyone. At the same time, demands were being made for the family, for non-discrimination, environment, minorities, etc. It is a time of legitimate demands, but also of regrettable violence.

But in Chile it is also the month of springtime, of plants and trees blooming, of the rebirth of nature, a season where the streets are filled with colours. The sun makes itself felt more strongly, gathering us bit by bit into its warm embrace.

I do not believe that the brothers arrived by chance in that season of contrasts. At this tme of year, I recall something that has always caught my attention, the incredible phenomenon that makes it possible for a single grain, small and simple, to contain a beauty as great as a beautiful flower or a leafy shrub.

This comes to mind now, when I see how a few young people, marked by the experience of the pilgrimage of trust, devote themselves to prayer, to contemplation and to listening to the word of God. Several of them are on the front line of the social unrest of these days and they find in prayer rooted in the Gospel a meaning to what they are living, what they are searching for and for their daily needs.

Admittedly, these are not enormous meetings, like the ones we like to share, but rather meetings in small groups, like a seed. With God’s help, this seed can become a leafy shrub that welcomes and gives shade to all the many people who today are asking for justice, liberty and for love, or who are trying to find a way that will give them peace of heart.

A beautiful sign blooms in silence these days at the central station and on the Pointe de Tralca, and at the “Llegua”, or else in the North and the South of Santiago, recently at Quillota, at Vina des mar, Valparaiso, and in many other places that perhaps we have not yet discovered. There is a great need to give a meaning to all that is happening in Chile and in the life of each one of us. Discretely and simply, this need is linked to the hope of being welcomed by the loving look in the eyes of Jesus Christ.

Those who have received this call have received the challenge to collaborate and to take an active part in a true pilgrimage of trust on earth. The brothers will return to Taizé at the beginning of November and they will take with them some of the flowers of this springtime of the heart. We shall follow within this garden, planted in the middle of the struggle and the present circumstances of Chile, but which flowers only with the light of God, God who knows how to love. The God who confirms to us that, as in the words of the song, “The soul filled by love never tires others nor grows tired”.