The method of restitution

The first time I met Sermig was on March 22, 1972. The school I attended had brought us students to listen to the testimony of Raoul Follereau, a French doctor who traveled the world with a slogan: "give me the equivalent in money of a fighter-bomber and we will eradicate the plague of leprosy in Africa". That evening in the crowded Valdocco theater in Turin I heard for the first time about a "working day": donating the equivalent in money of a day's work for development projects. That evening the proposal of the working day had marked a turning point in the path of Sermig precisely because it questioned everyone in a direct and continuous way: how much is a day of your work worth? What can you put into play if you are young, if you are a student? Everyone could reflect and decide in their heart how much to share, not episodically but monthly, with continuity. I remember that I was very struck by the proposal and when I returned home, in the evening, I filled out my membership form. I was 14 years old and I wanted to change the world, I wanted to participate in something that could leave its mark on the history of men. That proposal had touched me and in those months I began to hang out with the young people of Sermig and participate in their activities. A few years later, from that intuition, restitution developed.

I remember one evening in particular when Ernesto said: «From this evening at every meeting we will do something to remember the poor, we will pass a bag between our hands and give something back. We cannot give our waste to the poor. They have a right to their dignity. What could we call this gesture?». It was a proposal welcomed by everyone and the word “restitution” struck us, which we had never heard pronounced in a context where the words usually used were alms, offering, charity… Everyone liked it and from that evening we proposed that gesture every week. A girl sewed a dedicated jute bag that was passed between our hands. In the following weeks we proposed the same gesture to all the groups that were inspired by Sermig and, in a short time, together with prayer, the gesture of restitution became the central point of each of our meetings: we gave each other a thought and passed the jute bag from hand to hand, in silence and each one put in the bag what he decided in his heart. Many did not put anything in it, but in that moment they were thinking, they were wondering. When this word began to circulate among us and in our meetings, someone challenged us: why restitution? They return the thieves who have stolen, we have not stolen...

These questions pushed us to delve deeper into the ideas that that gesture implied and that we tried to make more and more explicit, to become more aware, convinced and convincing. So we also discovered that that concept was already present in the life of the Christians of the first centuries (Acts 4:32-35) and in the preaching of the Fathers of the Church who highlighted how it was not from our possessions that we gave to the poor, but from giving back to them what God had given us. Restitution has quickly become an identifying element of our thinking. It has begun to radically change the lives of many of us, to dig deep into our consciences, to produce changes and decisions: time donated, skills and competences made available, shared material goods, but also restitution of prayer and suffering for many sick people, elderly people who have given meaning to their fragility. The Arsenal of Peace and all the works created have their origin in restitution. It has become a method, the daily appointment with ourselves, with our community, with the poorest to become brothers of all.

Rosanna Tabasso
NP December 2024