One
of the fundamental characteristics of any missionary should be his simple zeal
to visit his/her flock. I would like to illustrate this assertion through my
own experience with the people in various parishes and mission centres. Let me
confess that as missionaries we may not be able to alleviate all the sufferings
and pains of our people, but we can definitely share in their sorrows and joys.
A simple gesture of visiting a family can bring its members closer to God.
Now
the question may arise in our minds, how can we bring people to God by just
making an empty visit to their families? I believe that we can bring joy to
people’s life through simple gestures. During our visits what we need to do is
to sit with the family members, share their joys and sorrows, listen to them,
pray with them, talk to the young ones, give them some advice and so on. During
my apostolate in some parishes I have realised that people need our effective
presence and our time.
In
one of my visits to a family an old lady told me something which I can never
forget in my life. She said to me, brother when we were young, priests and religious
had no convenient transport system. They had no bikes or vehicles. The
missionaries came to visit us either on foot or on cycles. But in this present
time the priests and religious have all the means of transport, but they rarely
make a visit to our families. She added we do not want the priests to bring us
money or food but to come and share our joys and sorrows. As missionaries we
need to ask, is it not a contradiction? We have busied ourselves in
administration and sophisticated constructions that we have little or no time
for the ones for whom we have offered our lives. Jesus is a true model of visiting missionaries.
He visited Zacheus and Mathew and brought change in their lives. He visited
Lazarus and the daughter of Zerus and brought them back to life. Let us
reawaken in us the spirit of visiting Jesus and be effective labourers in the
kingdom of Jesus.
By
Pawanjit Singh SDB
Mph
2nd year
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