THE SANT EGIDIO COMMUNITY 1. INTRODUCTION. How it was founded

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1 THE SANT EGIDIO COMMUNITY 1. INTRODUCTION How it was founded The Sant'Egidio Community was founded in Rome in 1968, under the initiative of a young man, Andrea Riccardi, who at that time was under 20 years of age. He started by getting a group of six form students to listen and to put into practice the Gospel. The first Christian community of the Acts of the Apostles and Francisco de Assisi were their first points of reference. A small group soon started to go to the outskirts of Rome, around the slums that surrounded the capital at that time, home to a lot of poor people, and they started to give afternoon classes to children: it was known as the Popular School (today called the Peace School in many places around the world). Since then the community has grown considerably, and today it is found in more than 70 countries and four continents. In the same way, the numbers of the members of the community has constantly risen: today there are around However, it is quite difficult to calculate the total number of people who join the community in its activities for the service of the community, and all those who constantly and significantly collaborate in the service to the poor and other activities developed by the Sant'Egidio, without strictly forming a part of it. Prayer The first "act" of the Sant'Egidio community is its prayer. From its encounter with the Scriptures, placed in the centre of life, a personal and common proposal was created which was new to those young people of 1968 who searched for a more real life: it is the ancient invitation of Jesus Christ to become his disciples, which he offers every generation. It is an invitation to convert and to stop living only for oneself, and of your own free will, to start to be instruments of a greater love for all, men and women, and above all for the poor. Listening and living the Word of God as the most important thing of one's own life means to agree not to follow oneself but Christ. The truest image is that of the community in prayer, when it meets to listen to the Word of God. It is like the family of disciples joined together around Jesus. The harmony and regularity in prayer (Hch.2, 42) are the simple path which is offered and requested from all the members of the community. Prayer is a path in which one becomes familiar with the word of Jesus and his prayer, together with the generations that have gone before us, as in the Psalms. At the same time, prayer submits to God the needs of each and every one of us and of the poor, and the needs of the whole world. That is why the communities in Rome and other parts of Italy, Europe and the world, come together as often as possible to pray together. In many cities community prayer is held every afternoon which is open to all. Every member of the community is also asked to find a significant place in their own lives for personal prayer and to read the Scriptures, starting with the Gospel. 1

2 Communicating the Gospel The second "act" of the community, its second pillar, is the communicating of the Gospel. It is the actual Gospel itself, i.e. the good news that is shared with others, the precious treasure, the lamp that cannot be hidden. The Gospel does not belong to one alone but is yet another responsibility for the members of the community, who have been called to spread the word. In the Sant'Egidio experience, being a disciple and living and communicating the Word of God are synonymous. It is an experience of joy and festivity, like in the Gospel of St Luke, when 72 disciples returned elated saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name (Luke 10, 17). This is the experience of every disciple and of each member of the Sant'Egidio Community who, throughout these years, has lived a "missionary fraternity" in many parts of the world. A community with no borders or walls Friendship among people of different cultures and nations is the everyday way of expressing this international fraternity, which at the same time is a gateway to the world and a sense of belonging to a single family of disciples. In a world in which at the end of the second millennium, borders, national and cultural differences are highlighted, even to the point of making it a reason for an old and new conflict, the communities of Sant'Egidio bear witness to the existence of a common destiny not only for Christians, but for all men. There are younger and older communities. Some are numerous and are more deeprooted than others, some are more well-known than others in the environment in which they live, but they all try to be, and really represent, one single family around Jesus. The community in Rome is the oldest and, as the first community, it develops a service to communion and to the most recent communities, without "any other limits than those of charity," as Pope John Paul II said in Sant'Egidio on the 25th anniversary of the community in This unity is expressed with a specific communion and solidarity between brothers and sisters, which has been seen as the best way of organising the life of the actual community. Friendship with the poor The third key "act" of Sant'Egidio, and a true pillar and everyday commitment from its very beginnings, is its service to the poor, which is lived like a friendship. The first students, who in 1968 got together around the Word of God, felt that the Gospel could not be lived at a distance from the poor: the poor as friends and the Gospel as the good news for the poor. That is how the first of the services of the community began, when it still did not have the name Sant'Egidio: the popular school, called this because they did not only consist of private classes for the deprived children of the Roman "Canódromo" deprived areas, in the area of the Tiber to the south of Rome. Since then the popular schools have multiplied in Rome and in every city in which the community is present, with special attention to the less fortunate children and those who live in the most difficult conditions. 2

3 As we find in Matthew, chapter 25, this friendship has increased with other poor people: the physically and mentally disabled, the homeless, immigrants, the terminally ill. Other situations have also been undertaken: prisons, old people's homes, gypsy camps, refugee camps. Throughout these years, a special friendship has developed towards other types of poverty, old and new or emerging, such as in non-traditional poverty like that found in many European countries with lonely, elderly people, as well as when they do not have much financial difficulty. Sant'Egidio identifies with its younger brothers and sisters and with all the poor, without exception, because that is why they are the family of the community with all their rights. There, where we find a Sant'Egidio community, from Rome to San Salvador, from Cameroon to Belgium, Ukraine or Indonesia, there is always a friendship and family union with the poor. No community, not even the youngest is too young or weak to be able to help those in poverty. It is the contribution of the widow which is of great value before God (Mc. 12, 41). The service for peace and humanisation in the world The friendship with the poor has led Sant'Egidio to understand even more that war is the mother of all poverty. And therefore, the love that is given to the poor in many situations has often implied working for peace, to protect life when it is threatened, to help to reconstruct it, facilitating dialogue in those places where it does not exist. The means at the disposal of this service for peace and reconciliation are the humble means of prayer, the Word, participation in difficult situations, encounter, dialogue. Even when one cannot work for peace, the community tries to achieve the solidarity and the humanitarian aid for the civil population that is suffering due to the war. Perhaps these are the most well-known aspects of Sant'Egidio, which speak of the means of communication, without expressing very often the continuity in the aid for the poor -something very present in the community since its beginnings as well as the evangelical roots. Some members of the community have been facilitators or mediators in fratricide conflicts which have lasted more than 10 years, like that of Mozambique, or the more than 30 years of Guatemala. Africa is wounded because of the wars, like the Balkans, and that is why these are the centre of the concerns and efforts of Sant'Egidio. Through these experiences Sant'Egidio has gained greater confidence in the "weak strength" of prayer and in the power of the change towards nonviolence and persuasion. These are aspects of Jesus Christ himself and which he lived until the end. In this sense, the community is always open to ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. Since 1987 it has been committed at an international level to continue with the encounters of the so-called "Assisi Spirit". A part of this evangelical urgency is the recent battle for a worldwide postponement of all capital punishment in the year 2000 which the community has started at an international level together with other organisations. This is an important step which 3

4 is backed by the special efforts of Sant'Egidio and all its members throughout the world, to declare the value of life without exceptions, at all levels. The same evangelical roots are present in other humanitarian initiatives which are suggested for all men and women of goodwill, independently of their religious creed, for example, that which goes against landmines, or specific aid for refugees or victims of wars and natural catastrophes, such as those of southern Sudan, Burundi, Albania and Kosovo, or the recent actions in favour of the population affected by the hurricane Mitch, or in support of the freedom for slaves in those places in which this inhumane practice is still present. 2. INTERVIEWS 2.1. María (PEMBA, MOZAMBIQUE) What commitments for justice and a dignified life for all have you acquired as a member of the Sant Egidio community, i.e. helped by your Christian faith and shared with others? My name is María, I am 35 years old and I am a civil servant in Pemba, Mozambique. Fifteen years ago I found out about the Sant Egidio Community, through some Italians who had been interested in the extreme conditions of my country for some years: hunger, misery, a civil war which had been devastating Mozambique for decades. Along with several friends from my city, we decided to embark upon the experience of Sant Egidio, attracted by the kindness of the friendship established with our Italian friends and convinced of the profound Christianity of the community proposal. Today, the Sant Egidio Community has an important presence throughout the country; there are more than 120 communities, distributed throughout the north, centre and south, with almost 10,000 members. This increase in numbers was a result of the signing of the peace agreement on the 4th October, 1992 in Rome, after two and a half years of negotiations in the Sant Egidio Convent. The founder and president of Sant Egidio, Andrea Riccardi, and the community ecclesiastical assistant, father Matteo Zuppi, were the mediators in this peace process. So the first thing I would like to establish is that for me and for all those from Mozambique, Sant Egidio firstly represents peace, a peace that seemed impossible, in the middle of a war which throughout the fifteen years killed one million people. A peace which was achieved with the commitment, love, intelligence, the faith of people without many resources and with no means of economic or political pressure. Therefore, the first thing that surprised me about the Sant Egidio proposal was the fact that I discovered a fundamental truth, especially in the African continent, where the Sant Egidio is progressing in almost every country: nobody is too poor or small to be able to help others and to give their contribution to the construction of peace. 4

5 This truth has become a reality specifically in the services to the poor sectors which we started in Pemba and in other cities in Mozambique. I would like to focus especially on three of these services: The peace schools for children and adolescents. During the war, there were a lot of children with their families, many who were alone, escaping from the countryside and who settled in the outskirts of the city, building bamboo huts. Of course they could not go to school. We ask ourselves what future they had, what we could do for them, what we could do to give them a perspective of life. That is how everything started. The peace school is a specific way of introducing hope where there is no future. A European teenager considers it quite natural to have the school next to their house, and that is why perhaps they go to school unwillingly, and are bored. For an African teenager school is a great privilege, and they cannot afford to miss one single moment. The service to the inmates in the prisons. The conditions of prisoners in Mozambique and I would say in the whole of Africa, are very hard. There are people who spend years in prison for ridiculous crimes, without ever receiving a trial. Not only is there no freedom, but there is also a shortage of water, food, clothes, space, hygiene. People often become seriously ill, many die, and more so if they do not have the external support of the family. In Pemba we started our visits organising meals on public holidays, but soon we learnt that this was not enough. The inmates asked us for a more constant, deeper and longer lasting friendship. A dialogue was initiated, they told us their stories, why they were in prison, we asked ourselves how we could also help them with legal assistance. In conclusion, we formed a family with them, sometimes it was a family that they no longer had. The Sant Egidio Communities today regularly give out food, sheets, clothes, soap, medicines, to thousands of inmates. Several literacy and professional training courses have been organised (shoemaking, crafts, pottery, carpentry, etc.) The DREAM project against AIDS. Today Mozambique is immersed in a war: the war against this illness which is annihilating entire generations of our continent. At the end of the 1990s, our brothers in Rome and also in other European countries decided to confront this tragedy offering treatment. Until that moment the world organisations limited their actions only to prevention, they decided that for the sick there was no hope. Treatment is too expensive, everyone said. This is a great injustice. Today an AIDS sufferer in Europe, in North America, in the rich countries, can live for many years and have a good quality of life. In Africa, on the other hand, this person is sentenced to death. The Dream Project is saving many lives, with the active participation of the Mozambicans. There are a lot of people who have recovered their strengths and now work helping other sick people. This service, which is now being expanded to other African countries, is not the accompanying of the terminally ill, but more the start of a rebirth. It is a global approach: treatment, education for children, food, hygiene, home assistance, treatment for pregnant women (to avoid transmitting the virus to the baby), diagnosis laboratories, training courses for doctors, nurses, laboratory technicians, etc. Do these commitments help you to find God? In what way? 5

6 These commitments are an encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ. I have understood the mystery of resurrection by getting to know these sick people which are reborn to life, to these children who have faith in the future, seeing how a terrible place like a prison can become more human. And personal resurrection, discovering the energy of love in me which I thought I did not have. In our community prayers, we very often sing a song, which goes, Let us sing the resurrection of Africa! Look at the desert converted into a garden, where God's people will live in peace. What signs of the Spirit of the God have appeared in this life of commitments and which you consider especially important? Attitudes, community life, way of life, people's involvement, etc. The conscience of being poor accompanies the life of the vast majority of Africans. It is easy to look with resignation at one's own country and above all convince yourself that the only thing that one can do is to worry about oneself. Many Africans, especially the young, want to leave the country, convinced that there is no future and that it is only possible to build something in Europe. I also thought the same, I hoped to have the opportunity to try my luck in France, in Spain, Italy... I think that a sign of the Spirit is that throughout this path I have radically changed my point of view on things, my mentality, my feelings for my country. Today I love my country, I have hope. I have discovered the value of helping my people, my society, the importance of understanding their situation more. The Sant Egidio Communities provide hope for the future of the African countries. This hope has its roots in the trust that our Lord never abandons his children; he always offers the gift of a decent, humane and happy life, and doing away with the environmental conditions or those of the nation of origin. We can all love each other, help each other, always and everywhere, whether you have more or less money in your wallet. From that life of faith and committed to justice in favour of the poor, what do you ask from the church of which you form a part? What do you think should change or become stronger? How would you like your commitment with justice and life to be? I ask the Universal Church to express more strongly that the Church is Communion, it is the new reality that the Apostle Paul spoke of, a new family without any borders, where there is no free person or slave, neither man nor woman, neither African nor European. This is what I experience at Sant Egidio, that it is a family of communities. I value the relationship that I have with my brothers in Pemba, but also with so many other brothers and sisters from other countries, whose faces are so familiar. I ask the Church in my country to be more committed to the evangelization, to be more generous in this sense. And from the same life, what do you ask from the society in which you live? What do you also ask from the people who live in the rich countries of the world? I ask my society to accept the dream that comes from God. It is possible to build a better future, a society full of solidarity, without hunger, without disease, without violence. I would like to focus a little on the hopes that I have with the rich countries, especially Europe. I believe in the communion of a destiny between Africa and 6

7 Europe. We need each other, we have to create an alliance. At Sant Egidio we often speak about a Eurafrica, in other words of the union of these two continents. This union comes from the history and geography of the world. I, as a Christian, add that this is born especially from the spiritual communion which does away with every border and frontier. 2.2 Francesco (ROME, ITALY) What commitments for justice and a dignified life for all have you acquired as a member of the Sant Egidio community, i.e. helped by your Christian faith and shared with others? My name is Francesco, I am 22 years old and I live in Rome, the city where I was born. At the moment I am finishing my university studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences. I have been part of the Sant Egidio Community for the last seven years. I discovered it when I started secondary school, when I was 15 years old. A friend, a classmate suggested I participate together with other classmates, and we went to a small school, giving private tuition to poor children from the outskirts of Rome. It was one of the small schools run by the Sant Egidio Community, and which is present in many of the deprived areas of Rome, called Peace Schools, because we did not only limit our actions to giving support to those children who may have difficulties in their school learning, but wanted to teach the children of these deprived areas, which are often lacking in positive human proposals, the values of peace, of mutual respect, of solidarity, of defending life and human dignity, in other words, creating in a difficult atmosphere, full of violence and conflict, often within their actual families, we aimed to build a culture of peace, which would help these children not only to continue studying, but also to grow as good, sensitive, humane people, full of solidarity for others. For the last three years, together with others from the Community, I have been visiting the elderly once a week in Trastevere, in the oldest part of the city, and in Testaccio, a working-class district close to the city. In Rome, there are many elderly people who live alone, with a lot of material and financial difficulties, in the context of great poverty, due to their loneliness. Do these commitments help you to find God? In what way? In Sant Egidio I have not only found an experience of social action in favour of those less fortunate members of society. Firstly I have found a living Gospel, a word which has been spoken directly to me. Before I found out about the Community, I was not a very religious person. Religion was always taken quite lightly in my family. Every so often we went to church, more as a tradition than as a conscious option. Without having anything against religion, I simply found it boring. The church for me was a respectable institution which proposed a set of moral precepts, possibly a little outdated, but which didn't mean very much to me, with my problems and concerns as a teenager, my expectations of new experiences and discoveries. The Christian message for me was merely a fact of times gone by. The fact is that I was searching for what we all search for, happiness, I had my hopes and disappointments, my 7

8 questions about life and the future, but I did not believe that Christianity could be an answer to my search. The great novelty appeared when they invited me to participate in the prayer of the Community during the week. I had visited the poor children, but had not understood the root of this commitment, the reason for this Community. During the prayer I was surprised by the words of the preaching, the explanation of the passage from the Gospel which had just been read. It was the episode of Christ's encounter with a rich young man. For the first time I felt that Jesus was speaking to me, I was this rich young man, with all his sadness, dissatisfaction, questions, and at the same time sure of myself and convinced that I was a good person. I said to myself, This person knows me, because he said things which were very close to my life and I felt understood. To be happy, in other words to achieve a full satisfying life, one has to abandon one's own wealth, give them to the poor and follow Jesus Christ. I understood that wealth is not only money, but also my good health, my young energy which had been lucky to grow up in a good and comfortable environment, into a family who had looked after me and protected me, who had allowed me to study. The children who I had visited a few days before could receive some of my wealth, especially my capability to care for their existence. That day of the prayer I had the intuition of a basic understanding of the Sant Egidio experience: the poor do not represent the objective of our goodness, but help us to get closer to the fulfilment of life, to make the direct and personal experience of the great truth found in the Bible, There is more joy in giving than receiving. With this in mind, we do not consider the commitment with the poor as a deed, but more as a service, characterised by gratitude, and lived as a personal encounter with our poorer brothers and sisters. And I have learned that listening to the Word of God, through personal reading or communal prayer, and the service to the poor are not separate realities, but that one (listening to the Word of God) enlightens the other (the service). That is why I often try to participate in the Community Prayer which takes place every night at the Santa Maria Church in Trastevere. Without this encounter with Jesus in his word, possibly my commitment with the poor would become arid, it could become a good custom. The gradual understanding of the Gospel has made me more aware of the importance that the poor have in my spiritual life, it is of the utmost importance. I think of the parable with the final judgment, in Mt 25, it is here that the listening of the Word of God and the encounter with the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned, the sick, joined together and are converted into one single encounter; that with the same Jesus. This is what I strongly feel when I go to visit my elderly friends. In their weakness, due to their age, to the illnesses, to the proximity of the end of their lives, I realise that I also understand something about the weakness of Jesus. What signs of the Spirit of the God have appeared in this life of commitments and which you consider especially important? Attitudes, community life, way of life, people's involvement, etc. Throughout these years, in this path of faith, I realise that many aspects of my personal life have changed. In fact, I feel that the conversion is not only an interior reality, to a certain degree hidden out of view from others. New attitudes have appeared in my way of life, I would say a new mentality. Let me try to mention some of these changes: the elderly have taught me many things: to not be afraid of external suffering, to understand my own weaknesses, to decipher it, but also, to a 8

9 certain extent, to not be afraid of my weaknesses. They have taught me that there is energy in every person, regardless of their fragility, of their abilities. No one is so old or a week that they cannot be important or useful for others. The elderly are not people who must be attended to by us, but instead living members of the Community, they too, depending on their possibilities, help other poorer people, visit with us the elderly who have been neglected in old people's homes or hospitals. The community experience has been a great window on the world. I have taken on the habit of reading the newspaper every day, I am interested in what happens in my country, but also in what is happening in other continents, especially in the poorer countries. I find that the Christian path is basically a continuous opening up to others, to other situations. To a certain extent this is what a theology expert once said, I think it was Karl Barth, A true Christian has a Bible in one pocket, and in the other a newspaper. I think this is what makes a Christian, being a man who is interested. It is what Father Lorenzo Milani has chosen as the logo of the Barbiana School, I care. What aspects of your faith have become clearer, highlighted and strengthened?: The way you see the life of Jesus Christ, or interpret the face of God, or welcome people, or see the presence of God in non- Christians. On the path of commitment, what have been the greatest difficulties you have experienced? How have you confronted these? They are the difficulties of all young people; the difficulty to live a commitment with fidelity and continuity, the worries that are brought about through the uncertainty of the future, which possibly concerns my generation more than previous generations; the conditioning of a social mentality which invites you to worry about yourself, a certain selfishness which is present in me as an instinct, it is fed and you confirm it through external voices that invite you to dedicate yourself exclusively to your own interest (career, money, etc.). I find that many people have the wrong idea about committed Christians. They are people who in the name of a superior morality (but not as attractive or advantageous) sacrificed their well-being, not know how to enjoy life to the fullest. This mentality does not bear in mind one key factor about the Christian vocation: the freedom. Doing good, committing yourself for justice, is not a moral obligation, but a free answer to an invitation. Jesus does not force anybody to be good and to behave. I like the episode in which Jesus meets Zacchaeus. Jesus did not ask him for any important change in his selfish and dishonest life, he only asks him to welcome him into his house. It is Zacchaeus who freely and joyfully accepts the commitment to help the poor; he himself establishes the measure of his commitment. I think that this is the Christian freedom, not a superhero sacrificed in the midst of a great indifferent and agreeable majority, but a joyful man like Zacchaeus freely decides how he can use his life, to help others. The important thing is for one to allow one's heart to be touched by the visit of Jesus. This is what I have understood in these years of community experience that the Christian faith is not a set of morals and doctrines, but instead it is the religion of the heart, and that there may always be difficulties, personal sin, a moment of crisis, but the important thing is not to lose one's heart. 9

10 From that life of faith and committed to justice in favour of the poor, what do you ask from the church of which you form a part? What do you think should change or become stronger? How would you like your commitment with justice and life to be? I would like the Church to speak more of the Gospel and less of moral issues, politics, sociology. It should present itself more as a place of communion, fraternity, solidarity, and less as an institution and social services agency. And from the same life, what do you ask from the society in which you live? What do you also ask from the people who live in the rich countries of the world? I live in one of the rich countries in the world, and above all I form a part of a Europe which since the post-war has launched itself into a process of unification which today is very advanced. I like to feel not only Italian, but also European, but I see two great challenges for the future of our continent, the condition of the elderly and the integration of immigrants. 10