José Ramón Díaz-Torremocha
(Conference of Santa María, Guadalajara - Spain)
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It seems that the time has come. We have been for almost three years now, interacting against the philosophy of most Christian groups and in particular the groups of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul: without any personal contact!
We were afraid of personal contacts because of the Pandemic and we discovered a way of not dropping our meetings thanks to the use of the most modern tools offered by the new internet techniques: we began to see each other and to keep our contacts on small mobile phone screens or on "tablets" where we seemed to shorten the distances by making good use of techniques that were so often used in a distorted way. What was designed to enable physically distant people to meet, made contact easier between people of good will suffering from the syndrome of physical distance or loneliness.
Thus, for example, help for the poorest of the poor was continued, who felt the possible closeness of those who helped them or who simply shared a little of their loneliness or provided them with the essentials of life. It was noteworthy to see truly old people, struggling to learn how to "write" letters again, but instead of paper and pen or pencil, on a computer screen. There are juicy anecdotes of old people operating keyboards they had never seen before and doing it very well. At least in a way that was comprehensible to the person who received them, happy to hear from friends or relatives, inside the four walls within which they are "sheltered" from I don't exactly know what. Someday, someone will study how many we condemned to die alone and abandoned without a good medical reason to justify it. How many let themselves go because they could not bear the enforced loneliness?
Well, we accepted what we were told was necessary to protect us, even with doubts, and so many of us offered it while we prayed for our friends who were disappearing for one reason or another, and tried to help those who were left alone.
But it happened and the same people who forbade us to go out, later encouraged us to do so and we began to go out and meet again. But something of the illness of confinement remained in our habits. It was comfortable to see our fellow apostolates without leaving the house and without being exposed to the cold in winter or the heat in summer. After all, it was said that the Pandemic was still alive. It was not entirely true: a good preventive treatment, some distancing and a simple mask could protect us, and still does.
However, many groups that met with a Christian spirit before the virus, some also from the Conferences, kept on seeing each other through those means that were somehow justified by the pandemic, but not afterwards. Not today. On the contrary, they may even damage the fraternity that should prevail in Christian groups.
Let each of us, as a group, take whatever measures we think are necessary to feel protected. But, please, let us regain contact with each other, let us hear and see the other, the one who works for the Kingdom with us, in person, and let us give him the affection and trust he needs. Let us not make coldness official. Let us not be paralysed by fear. "Let us not forget that being a Christian is a journey, or rather a pilgrimage, a walking together with Jesus Christ".[1]
Let me remind the members of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul who read these lines, some words written in 1968 by one of our president generals: the Frenchman Pierre Chouard: "Mutual affection, fraternal equality within each Conference as among all the Conferences of the whole world, turn the Society of St. Vincent de Paul into a true family, human and spiritual, open to all those who seek their own vocation". [2]
How could we be a family without seeing each other, without talking to each other, without knowing each other? How could we choose in the year 2023 the person who will lead us and show us a somehow new way to go further and always without giving up the present one? Without abandoning those who suffer!
If we do not know each other, it will not be possible. We won't be able to propose the fellow members that we consider suitable because we won't know them and we might not elect the best one.
I am re-reading these days a wonderful book that I recommend to everyone. It is entitled "Mystical Leadership" by a devoted fellow member who has given many hours of his life so that we can grow with his thoughts and advice, very dedicated to the poor, having founded Conferences[3] along all the paths that his profession has obliged him to travel.
Therefore, my candidate will be my fellow member Eduardo Marques Almeida in the next election for the general presidency, asking our Mother to protect him. This is what I have communicated to every member who has asked me over the last few days and weeks about my opinion on the subject.
Always to Christ through and with Mary.
[1] “Mi spiritual legacy” Benedict XVI (Saint Paul Publishing House)
[2] Preamble to the text of the Rule of the Society for the five-year period 1968-1973, opuscule
[3] “Mystical leadership” Eduardo Marques Almeida, (Publishing House “La Milagrosa”, Spain)