ACN MIRROR JUNE 2016

special edition June 2016

Performing works of mercy, with Aid to the Church in Need Message of Pope Francis to the world

© Grzegorz Galazka

In his video to ACN, Pope Francis has given us the following message: “On this Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave of Easter, I want to appeal to all men and women of good will, all around the world, to perform works of mercy, in every town, in every diocese, in every association.

We, men and women, need God’s mercy, but we also need each other’s mercy. We need to take each other’s hand, care for one another, show love for one another and stop fighting so many wars. I am looking here at the dossier of projects prepared by the pontifical charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), to support

works of mercy in the whole world. I entrust this work to ACN… And I commend them to carry on in the spirit they have inherited from Father Werenfried van Straaten, who in his own day had the vision to encourage these gestures of warmth, of charity, of goodness, of love and mercy in the world. So I invite all of you, together with ACN, in every part of the world, to perform a work of mercy – but one that lasts, a permanent work of mercy; a structure for so many needs that exist today in the world. I thank you for everything you do. And do not be afraid of mercy: mercy is God’s tender touch.”

To view this message in full, go to: acnmercy.org

Spread God’s mercy – all over the world © ACN/Bartek Zytkowiak

The Holy Father is calling us to bring God’s mercy to the people. His wish is our command, as Father Werenfried used to say. In order to follow the Holy Father we need to hear the cries and pleas for mercy, we need to see those places where poverty and distress cry out to heaven. We need to support the servants of this mercy who carry his love into these places and to these people. When this happens, they will reap the fruits of mercy, in reconciliation and peace. Below we present four projects, which typify the wide range of our ongoing projects on every continent.

The need for mercy The nameless ones from Jagdalpur They wander the streets at night – naked and with no name. Mentally handicapped girls and women who have been abandoned by their own families. Some have been thrown out, far away from home – pushed out from a car at night onto the city’s waste heaps. The Sisters of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the Diocese of Jagdalpur in India see Christ himself in these, the “least of his brethren”. They pick them up from the streets, dress them, feed them and restore their dignity.

Sometimes they even manage to reunite them with their families. The Sisters have furnished a house for them. It is a modest and clean house, full of light, where they help these forgotten ones and surround them with love. In recent years the Sisters were able to rescue 80 of these mentally handicapped women from the streets. This home is the only one of its kind in Jagdalpur. Today 35 women live here, but their numbers are increasing, and so the house needs to be extended. The cost will be €45,000. This is too much for the Sisters. They are asking for help, in the name of the nameless ones. Just a place to put their simple items of furniture, small cupboards, beds, a crucifix to kneel before and pray: Lord, have mercy, have mercy on me.

The apostles of mercy The compassionate beggars of Bogota Mother Church is home to a wide range of spiritual communities – each with its own charism. The lay apostolic community Donum Going out to the margins – visiting the beggars “at home”.

In the home for the nameless ones – living in dignity again.

Christi – Servidores del Servidor (Servants of the Servant and Sons of Padre Pio) in Bogota, Colombia strive to seek out the homeless and abandoned whom they find begging in the streets of the city and restore them to health and wholeness of mind and body. According to official sources, the number of homeless in Bogota ranges from 22,000 to 38,000 and is rapidly increasing. In the streets, beneath the bridges, on park benches, in doorways or a corner by the entrance of a store, or the covered passage of a shopping mall – home is everywhere and nowhere – cardboard boxes for the homeless, who often beg for food and alcohol. More often than not drugs play a leading part in their tragic lives.

Every other one of these homeless people is still a child or a teenager.

The community brings them donum Christi – the gift of Christ – Mercy, which is more than just a shower and a bed for the night. In their “home on the road” – once it is built – the Sisters will also be able to give them time; time to listen – time for human sympathy. For these people need more than just hygiene and medical care. Equally important is human warmth and affection. Lost and drifting, they need to experience the tenderness of God’s hand and find the courage and strength to face life again. Through the help of the Servidores, they can sometimes even find new hope and a way out of their misery. Selfless help leading to self-help – this is the recipe, the food for the journey that they hope to be able to provide for these homeless people in their “home on the road” – the “halfway house” they plan to build. It will be called the Casa Papa Francisco, the House of Pope Francis. They are asking for €19,000 so they can start work on this, the first home. The plan is to have many more such homes of mercy.

Thank you for feeding us! Syrian refugee children in Lebanon

The places of mercy Feeding the 500 in Lebanon Thousands of refugees from Syria have found refuge in the Lebanese town of Zahlé. Many arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

The Church in Lebanon, though poor herself, is helping them. Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Issam John Darwish tells us, “ACN is the first organization to offer help. Otherwise we would be left alone in our suffering.” This suffering includes the children whose parents and families were killed in Syria – the children who have barely escaped death by fleeing to neighboring Zahlé. It includes those with no one left to turn to – no family to go to anywhere in the world. It includes the local Lebanese in Zahlé itself, the impoverished families who have lost their very livelihoods because of the war. It includes those who have lost their father, those who cannot find work, who lack the basic necessities and suffer hunger. The Church is helping those in need – as Jesus did when he said: “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat and I do not want to send them away hungry.” (Mt 15:32). Archbishop Issam has opened a food kitchen for these poor and abandoned people who have nothing to eat. He wants to provide one warm meal a day for 500 people in need – children, poor and deprived families, refugees – all those wounded in body and spirit. A priest and a few volunteers from the parish will also help to take care of their spiritual needs.

The archbishop wants Zahlé to become a place of mercy and love, alongside the abyss of hatred and violence in nearby Syria. Archbiship Issam needs €1,000 a day to carry out his plan – €2 per person. He is counting on your mercy and placing his trust in Our Blessed Lady. “She has always been with us to help in Zahlé”, he says.

The fruits of mercy

less against marauding gangs. They killed, ransacked, plundered and burned homes – driven by hate and greed. Deep are the wounds. Pope Francis visited the country six months ago, in an act of real faith, as Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui wrote in a recent letter. Pope Francis came as an ambassador of peace. Since then a new spirit of peace and reconciliation is blowing through the country. The Church wants to keep this spirit alive and is planning to hold a conference and bring together priests, religious, and lay pastoral workers in the country – a total of 648 people. Together they will join in prayer and hold conferences and seminars, and celebrate a solemn pontifical Mass in order to draw strength from the source of love for the work of reconciliation.

“We Christians want to reach out to the poor and the sick, to the abandoned and forgotten, to the politicians and the Muslims – just as the Holy Father has asked us to do.” So they may all see the face of the loving and merciful God – so that the wounds may heal and peace be established among the people. This reconciliation has a price tag, however: €9,000 that the Church does not have. So we are helping. For reconciliation is beyond price.

Preaching forgiveness, seeking reconciliation.

Archbishop Dieudonné on a pilgrimage of reconciliation through the country.

Peace and reconciliation in Africa The Central African Republic is looking for signs of reconciliation.

For months in the past, entire villages and cities were left defenceAny donation you kindly give will go to support these, or similar projects, and enable the pastoral work of Aid to the Church in Need.

© Grzegorz Galazka

“Do not be afraid of mercy: mercy is God’s tender touch.” www.acnmercy.org

Dear Friends, What more can we ask! The Pope himself is inviting us – no indeed, is urging us – to bring the mercy of God to the people.

He quite literally tells us to “Walk in the footsteps of Father Werenfried” and to “accomplish, together with ACN, a work of mercy somewhere in the world.”

And that is what we intend to do. Together. And to carry others with us – like a strong river. Because the power of mercy cannot be simply a mere trickle. Never has the world needed mercy more than it does today. We need to drown the evil in the good.

Never has the world needed more hope for a better future than it does today. We must transform despair into hope. Look around us: violence and hatred in the Middle East, particularly against Christians; displacement of people, terrorism, human trafficking in Africa, misery and poverty in India, China and Latin America. War and conflicts releasing waves of refugees from these conflict zones to founder on the coasts and beaches of the rich or smash themselves against the high defensive walls of prosperity. The family of mankind is torn apart.

We have in our hands the ability, together with the Holy Father, to bring more hope and peace to the world. Because the works of mercy really do convey our belief in a better world, not only after death, but now. Pope Francis reminds us of this and encourages us to perform these works of mercy. On Divine Mercy Sunday he said to the whole of Christianity: “Everything that Jesus said and did is an expression of the mercy of the Father.

But not everything is written: The Gospel of mercy remains an open book in which the sign of the disciples of Christ – the concrete expression of love, which is the best witness of mercy – continues to be written. We are all called to be living writers of the Gospel, the bearers of good news for all men and women of today. We do this when we perform the corporal and spiritual

works of mercy.” And to all of us in ACN, who have followed the numerous appeals of Father Werenfried for decades and enabled repeated deeds of mercy to be done, he says: It is not enough, the world needs more.

We are ready. In a worldwide campaign we intend, through concrete actions, not only to give drink to the thirsty, to visit the imprisoned, to clothe the naked. That has long been part of our programme. This is about more. We want to shake up the world; we want to show what faith and love are capable of. We want to create hope. We also want to awaken, even among atheists and those who have fallen way from God, the awareness that love is worthwhile; that God is close to them, that he acts in every life and accompanies us all. We want to seek people out and carry them with us, for mercy is more than an idea. It is a fact.

This special edition of the Mirror is only a first wake-up call. It is intended only as a beginning. It aims to point out that one single deed alone is not enough. The website acnmercy.org will constantly bring you new descriptions of deeds of mercy, deeds made possible only thanks to your great generosity. Go to this page and watch the video, show it to others. We all of us, women and men, young and old, we all need God’s mercy. And we also all of us, as the Holy Father says, need “the mercy of others”. It is “the tenderness of the loving hand of God”. It comes from the Spirit, who renews the face of the earth.

Johannes FreiherrHeereman, Executive President, ACN (International)

Editors: Jürgen Liminski & Stephen Axisa Please use the envelope. Aid to the Church in Need, 39B Mdina Road, Publisher: Aid to the Church in Need, 39B Mdina Road, Attard ATD 9038 Attard ATD 9038; Tel: 21487818; Fax: 21586257 APS Bank, IBAN: MT72 APSB 7705 7008 5772 2000 1771 733 Printed in Malta BIC: APSBMTMT De licentia competentis auctoritatis Email: info@acnmalta.org – facebook//Aid to the Church in Need Malta Pass this leaflet on to your neighbours, friends or leave it at the Parish ecclesiasticae www.acnmalta.org Church for others to review.

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