11.13.2012

My Experience

Around mid September I began my residency in a Retirement Home in Assisi. This experience is helping me discover more and more the face of Jesus as poor in the elderly and ill.

Every day when I begin my shift, I feel the Lord asking me to be first of all a presence of love that does not judge, that knows how to love each person without being partial, and by going beyond appearances. This experience allows me to concretely touch the fragility of these brothers who need everything: being nourished, clothed, and washed, but especially loved and sometimes even cuddled. I often read loneliness in their eyes, and abandonment and sadness for a life that is ending.

For this reason, I feel that God is asking me to have a particular care for each, a care that is sensitive to their physical and psychological difficulties. Many have difficulty moving, but mostly they have issues with the understanding of time and space. This means that I can exchange a few words with just a few of them, but thank God, I follow the advice of Mother Frances, who tells us to use kindness in all cases, and I see that it works most of the times. It is really true that the language of love is the most comprehensible, and that it is the one that overcomes any barrier.

Sometimes I have to exercise patience with some of the workers as well: the way they address the elderly, which is at times rude, encourages me to set a good example to be a healing presence for all.

I am really grateful to God and the Congregation for having given me the possibility to live this beautiful experience, in which I learn much from my teachers, who are precisely these brothers I meet every day.

Sr. Barbara T.

Sr. Barbara and colleagues

With a guest of the Retirement Home

 With other guests

A shared recreational moment