Today in the gospel, Jesus taught us the lesson of forgiveness: seventy times seven. What a great lesson and a hard one, as well! If we think about it, that’s the mission that we missionaries and Christians are called to live. We are supposed to be bridges between all the people that we meet and God, bridges that unite heaven and earth.
Today, our missionaries were those bridges between God and the babies, and between God and each other, bridges that unite heaven and earth.
Tears ran down my cheek when I was holding a baby and a paralyzed girl in a crib nearby was wailing. I couldn’t pick her up, so I asked one of the missionaries, “Please put down your baby and help her! She likes to sit up. Try to take her outside.” At the end of the day, the missionary ran to me. “Paola, the girl was smiling and laughing out loud. We did it!” Bridges unite heaven and earth.
After lunch, three girls were heading toward the sick ward and I told them, “Please make sure you play with the new baby boy that came yesterday.” This boy was suffering from severe malnutrition, and was so swollen that he looked like a blow-up doll. Even his eyes couldn’t open from the swelling. Again, at the end of the day, the girls came running to tell me, “Paola, the boy colored with us. He was taking the crayons, coloring, and giving them back to us to color with him. We did it for a while!” Bridges unite heaven and earth.
All our relationships should be a bridge that brings us closer. We always need to look more for what unites us than what divides us. The missionaries wearing the cross on their backs break the barriers of language, illness, fatigue. They become bridges of love, of friendship, of forgiveness.
