Article for SFP Life

Life.jpg (28277 bytes)

SENEGAL:
October 2004 through October 2006
by Sister Helena Paula Carvalho, SFP

"Here is thy footstool and there rest thy feet:
Where live the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.
When I try to bow to thee, my obeisance cannot reach down
to the depth where thy feet rest among the poorest and lowliest, and lost.
Pride can never approach to where thou walkest
in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, and lowliest, and lost.
My heart can never find its way to where thou keepest company
with the companionless among the poorest, the lowliest, and the lost".

Gitanjali 10
– "Where the mind is without fear" by Rabindranath Tagore –

In order to accomplish his design, God chooses the poor, the frail and the simple ones. They are free and they open themselves to God. And it is in that poverty, in that frailty of the poor, that the Father is manifested: “My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.” (2 Corinthians, 12: 9)

In the brief period of two years spent in Senegal, I experienced several moments of deepening in God’s Word and experiencing his presence while relating to the people who helped me face the countless challenges inherent to being in a new culture.

What most captivated me was living with these suffering people of mine, injured by their social, political, economic and cultural condition. It stirred in the innermost part of myself a great passion for the children, youth, adults and the elderly I met for their simple, poor way of living from the basic needs for their survival. It stirred in me the wish to change things, to be incarnated in their same reality and, starting from there, to become different so as not to remain indifferent. To work and to struggle with this new family of God’s children so as to recover my feelings of gratuitousness, humanity and solidarity . . . with a passion!

I thank God who was always close to me in all moments, the happy ones and the difficult ones, giving me the strength and the courage to respond to his calling in every circumstance.

And I also thank our dear Sisters, Associates, priests, friends who supported me and helped me to win over through prayer and fraternal love the challenges of this mission.

Close