Au mois de janvier, Rita (Irlande), Cecilia (Italie) et Ina (Allemagne) ont vécu en petite fraternité provisoire de jeunes à Bonfim/Porto. En voici quelques échos:
Why am I here? I can’t speak the language, no one understands when I speak English "because I speak too fast, and have a funny accent", I can’t sing, I have no idea what’s going on?! Why am I here? Then the words of Br Leo came back full steam - just be there, be with the people and have three daily prayers ... that’s all you have to do. Okay.
There is a strange intensity to interactions with people when you cannot speak the same language, that is not to say you do not understand each other. Without language, without the misunderstandings that sometimes come with words, without the ability to lable each and every moment, there comes a strange but beautiful moment of just being present with the other person.
We feel like part of the family, despite the language barrier. The Portuguese people in general as we have experienced don’t let the language be an issue in getting closer and caring, and they take the time to communicate in whatever way possible. (…)
The community of Bonfim: in its latin character very welcoming, warm, careful.. It was visible that Padre Nuno and the people living at his house were very happy that we were there, which was also manifested through so many hugs and smiles. This open, welcoming, familiar and simple environment helped us to be spontaneous and ourselves, and it was essential to build our small community. We manage to create a balance between our space, physical or not, and the sharing time with the people of the parish. We lived in a small house next to Padre Nuno`s, but still separate from it.
During the four weeks we helped in the morning with whatever the people in the secretariat asked us to do (wrapping statues in paper, taking pictures of icons ... ), we spent a few hours a day in a "daily centre" for old people and we worked in a project aiming at saving food from restaurants and re-distributing it to families in need.
The work in the daily centre was not aiming at a practical result, which made it a very powerful and a real "servizio" (service); in fact, there weren’t any expectations from their side. I would say that from our side, we had some at the beginning, such as doing more activities together so that we could get to know them better; but we soon understood that it was, very simply, just about being there and sharing our time with a group of old people that sits on couches for a long part of its day. We had a wonderful nice prayer in the "centro de dia" with the old people! It was a moment of pure harmony and peace and they asked us to do it again! We are so grateful for this sharing!
The food bank project was great and interesting in how it worked. The best part was the people, the group dynamics with such a broad mix of social backgrounds. They worked together in little teams, a different one each evening, each with their own system and their own personalities shining through.
On Friday 29th, we organized an all night prayer, from 9pm to 9am. At this point there were many people coming and the chapel was full for many hours. we had a prayer every hour and the rest was silence ... never thought I would have said that, but it was great.
It was not always easy; as we spent so much time together. I think it s normal that sometimes there were some tensions and misunderstandings. We were able to deal with that, even though sometimes our diversities stood out and we had to think together how to merge them once more. (…)
The common life in Porto had with it some challenges, but I think that in any common life that is just part and parcel of what you are doing. It is inevitable that there are some days where it is a little more difficult, but then the beautiful and fun times outweigh every one of those days.