Many years agovolunteering was a gift of time and money by deserving and ancient associations, born around the parishes, the dioceses, from the school of charity of the social saints.
Then the ecclesial movements especially educated their young people to learn from charityto grow in charity, which is first and foremost a good thing for those who live and bear witness to love for God and neighbor, according to the commandments of Jesus. Testimony, as we know, it expands by contagionalmost by competition, even if charity has increasingly been replaced by the word solidarity.
How many men and women of good will and love of life have become irreplaceable presences:
- in the suburbsfor homework and play for the little ones, for company and care for the elderly;
- for blankets and food for the homelessto support justice for the poorest, abandoned and violated women and children;
- to prepare meals and packages to the neediest families;
- to give a smile in hospitals to those who are sick and a comfort to those who die;
- to build churches and meeting placessports fields, family homes;
- to welcome those who are alone and underprivilegedto help the stranger or prisoner, clothe the naked, give food and drink to the hungry.
They are the works of mercycorporal and spiritual, which save the souls of many, believers and non-believers, because they change your heart.
And in these days of diligent shopping for the holidays, of frantic rushes to set the tables, there are those who remember those who don’t haveand moves the imagination, the hands and the legs.
Thirty years ago the Third Sector Forum was born in Italy: that of volunteering, which unites all groups, communities, organizations that do not have profit as their primary aim and, if they make profit, they reinvest it for the common good.
I like to remember a champion of creativity and passion, Riccardo Bonacinafounder and first director of the non-profit weekly, Life. A revolutionary newspaper in the journalistic panorama, which has helped training, commitment to regulations, which has given voice to the galaxy of social works.
A bet on freedom to tell the story of Italy wants and knows how to buildto propose, more than just complaining or screaming, breaking, hating. Lifethat is, love and work for life, for reality as a whole and for the men who inhabit it.
Bonacina, who many knew and respected, passed away last week, after a long illness which he lived peacefully. In faithwhich has always moved his intelligence since he worked at the glorious weekly On Saturdaysentinel of Catholic commitment in the political, social and cultural world.
Until recent years, when he left with trucks full of food for the cold and devastated lands of Ukraine, because peace is not achieved by waving banners, but by being men and women of peace.
Fortunately, in these times of sad consumerism and individualism, there are saintsthat is, real men, who give everything, taking that seriously “You have received freely, you give freely”.
Not out of voluntarism, not out of an effort to be generous, not because Christians “do” good works, but out of receive grace upon grace.
