works of mercy Category

SPAIN, Maria Fischer  with material from the Bulletin of the Schoenstatt Movement of Madrid • “The Holy Door that we have crossed in this Jubilee has set us on the path of charity, which we are called to travel daily with fidelity and joy. It is the road of mercy, on which we meet so many of our brothers and sisters who reach for someone to take their hand and become a companion on the way… Two thousand years have passed, yet works of mercy continue to make God’s goodnessRead More
ITALY, Pamela Fabiano • An update on Aleppo and Sister Maria Guadalupe’s story On our site for some months now, we have tried to keep the attention and the interest alive on the events taking place in Syria and Iraq, as much as possible. The war, as we all know, does not appear at all to be diminishing and unarmed people cannot do anything else but flee – again, where?  – or live in hardship amid the ruins of cities razed to the ground. However the media around the worldRead More
PARAGUAY, vía Dequeni.org.py • Within the framework of “Rebuild Hope” Campaign, the Dequení foundation held a groundbreaking ceremony to begin the work to improve “Costa Sosa” (Luque) and “Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (Ypané) community centers, with the support received from businesses and generous donors. These community centers suffered serious damage to the roof and walls due to deterioration from the constant storms during the past year; as a result, Dequení transferred their activities to temporary locations. Thus at the beginning of this year, the Foundation proposed to implementRead More
PARAGUAY, Maria Fischer with Ani Souberlich • “They told me, and I forgot it, I saw it, and I understood it; I did it, and I learned it.” This how it is every day in what the youths do at Mother of Tupãrendá House. Today we learned to make buns for hot dogs, bread for pork loin and our invention: big bread– “The size of the hunger that we always have, and it has no end just like that of anyone our age. The truth is that it is deliciousRead More
COSTA RICA, by Rudolf Sauter and Maria Fischer • This Thursday, a 7.0 earthquake, with its epicenter right off El Salvador’s Pacific coast, shook the Central American territory hours after hurricane Otto entered Nicaragua from the Caribbean. Within a few hours, these small Central American countries – Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica – many of them with a high degree of poverty, found themselves with quake damage in the west and a hurricane in the east. Panamá, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica… are countries that sound “familiar”Read More
SPAIN, Elena Martín Otín • It has already been ten years since the birth of Betania Spain. What began as a small reality for four separated women, under the protection of its founder María Luisa Erhardt, and Fr. Gabriel García Serrano, our counselor, today is huge reality for more than 200 women integrated into twelve groups. They are united by the common factor of their marriage break-ups. Many of them are in the process of an ecclesial annulment of marriage, or they have resolved this; others are divorced or inRead More
PARAGUAY, Ani Souberlich • “Paying for the wrong we have done is one thing, but another thing entirely is the “breath” of hope, which cannot be stifled by anyone or anything. Our heart always yearns for goodness. We are in debt to the mercy that God constantly shows us, for he never abandons us (cf. Augustine, Sermon 254:1)… hypocrisy leads us to overlook the possibility that people can change their lives; we put little trust in rehabilitation, rehabilitation into society. Thus we forget that we are all sinners, and oftenRead More
 PARAGUAY, Roberto Zárate Peña • One of the main objectives of project Alianza Solidaria (Covenant Solidarity) is to support the health system of the Nivaclés (indigenous people) in Cacique Sapo, Misión Escalante, and San José communities. In Cacique Sapo, partnered with the German Embassy, we built a completely equipped medical dispensary. In Misión Escalante, 35km north, and close to the Argentinean border, we installed an air conditioner in the dispensary to make the doctor’s work more comfortable, since he resides there and he has to take care of three communitiesRead More
PARAGUAY, by Maria Fischer and Ani Souberlich • “Do we have donations for one more house?” Ani Souberlich asked me several weeks ago. “I already asked for the material, it is for one of our families that I promised a roof, and with last week’s rain, they had some misfortune, and they are now practically living under a tree. I would like to help them now…and I want to build this house because it is cold. I will tell you more later!” Two or three days before, the first donationRead More
BOLIVIA, Fabián Aguirre • During this Holy Year, music, mercy, art, disability, talent and solidarity united in a project that a missionary of the Pilgrim Mother in Bolivia was encouraged to launch in favor of children with disabilities from a small center of El Alton, where people with serious physical, cognitive, sensory, and psychosocial difficulties are attended. How did the project emerge? In Bolivia, from the beginning of this Holy Year, people with disabilities carried out repeated complaints to receive more economic help from government authorities. To demonstrate their needsRead More