The look that brings life

When I look at my brothers in the monastery, those who live with me daily in a limited space, I cannot imagine myself in a "seclusion": I feel immersed in the human mass, which has a face, a soul, which is characterized by three traits : everyone is poor with their own poverty and this poverty becomes the possibility of living together in the slow and tiring work of having one soul and one heart. We are united thanks to the voids which are doors open to welcoming others. Poverty is a source of hunger.
Today in our Western world we are not hungry for bread, but for benevolent, affectionate looks that recognize in you a person worthy of being welcomed and esteemed just as you are, a person whose values are appreciated.

The second trait is, therefore, that everyone has their own original beauty, a reflection of the splendor of God, who did not consider this splendor as a private property that cannot be shared, but as a source of communion that extends to infinity. Each person carries within himself a beauty that makes him similar to God, even if in his poverty he hides sometimes more, sometimes less, this beauty and this similarity with everything that has disfigured man and that must be saved.

The third trait is that everyone has an unquenchable hunger, hunger to be loved and to be able to love. This hunger is a torment, but it also knows how to make us joyful for what we already receive, yet it never leaves us satisfied.
The true progress of the human person lies in these two things put together: being happy and joyful in every circumstance, but still desiring something more, or rather something better. This desire is an accepted poverty, which neither crushes nor paralyzes.
Rather it stimulates growth. Humility makes us happy, the greatness of our nature gives us a thirst for more.

We all need to be loved and we are hungry for love: if we don't receive even a crumb of it we will wither until we die. We must remember this when we look at each of our brothers or sisters: their life also depends on each of us, that we can give at least a crumb of love, even when we can't do anything else. Our poverty risks making us ashamed and instead of giving that crumb of love, perhaps just a smiling look, an affectionate greeting, recognition of the person, we pass by turning our heads and pretending not to see. You don't pass by a poor person asking for alms without giving a sign of recognition, a greeting, a word, even if you can't or don't want to give anything.
The thing most contrary to love is not hate, but indifference, which nullifies the other, does not make him exist and leaves him hungry for any sign that recognizes his presence.

I was talking about my community: the right balance between solitude and fraternal communion is not easy.
The Rule speaks of silence, but also of fraternal charity, it speaks of discretion, but evangelically also of the fact of being alive for everyone and not just for one's own perfection. Contempt is a killer with clean hands. But the heart is not.

When we find ourselves in front of a person who seems bad, violent, or at least who does not follow social rules, we must always ask ourselves if they are loved, if the gaze we place on them is welcoming and ready to help, to heal the wounds, if his loneliness is not hidden in that transgression that disturbs us. Those who saved many young people or even elderly criminals did so more with their gaze than with their works.

Cesare Falletti
NP February 2024