PARAGUAY, Martín Ávila •
In the first meeting of the Leadership Team, the presentation of the Mission of the Youth Ministry of the Rosary Campaign took place. They spoke about the personal encounter with Christ, an encounter that for the Christian is substantially given in the Eucharist and in the strength of that Sacrament when seeing Christ in others, as Jesus himself says in St. Matthew Chapter 25. In the specific case of the SSI Mission (Mission in the Central Hospital of the SSI – Social Security Institute): “I was sick and you visited me” the Lord said, says and will say to us until the Parousia (second coming). —
On Saturday, May 6, we responded with a Yes to Mary’s call to make the Gospel come alive and thus began a new cycle of the SSI Mission; the convocation to the missionaries was scheduled for 2:30 pm; but at 2:20 pm we received the message from the Chaplain, Father Gabino. “I am in the chapel waiting” he told us via Whatsapp, which clearly shows the importance of what the pastor of the Church of Christ was giving to this mission; we felt deeply admired by this gesture that says too much.
Let us reflect your image…
Father Gabino invited us to pray the Holy Rosary and during the prayer the missionaries arrived on a rainy day that invited us to stay at home; once we finished praying, Father Gabino welcomed us and introduced us to the services that the Church offers in the SSI. He also told us that he has been a diocesan priest for 25 years and that he has been at the SSI for 22 years, he gave us Mass schedules, Confessions, Anointing, Eucharist; he gave us recommendations on how to deal with the sick, and highlighted two important points:
- The importance of prayer as the fundamental foundation of the Mission. And here we must remember the teaching of His Holiness Benedict XVI who said that “the Eucharist is the summit of prayer”, it is evident that this mission is a great step in our lives to work in the so longed for holiness.
- To imitate Mary by highlighting the Christian qualities of our beloved Mother in the following of Christ. How important it is to try as much as possible to live or conquer the qualities of our beloved Mother; as so many saints have expressed it as the certain way in the following of Christ.
He took the picture of the Pilgrim MTA and missioned with us
Finally, he gave us the priestly blessing with a beautiful prayer of sending forth, after which we were left with the task of dividing ourselves to make the pilgrimage. A group that was with Luján, who was on mission celebrating a birthday, went in search of the little ones, carrying some food; another group went with the mothers who were in a situation of having given birth or were waiting; another group went to the medical clinic, this group was the most numerous and in which Rocío was present, she offered the Body of Christ to the sick who requested it. We heard several anecdotes, a beautiful experience was to see how a graduate took the picture of the Pilgrim MTA and went on mission with us.
Many opened the door for us
At the end at the Chapel, the faces clearly showed the beauty of living the Gospel of Christ; the eyes were mirrors of the soul filled with grace and a big smile, like the standard of doing everything that He tells us to do; we prayed for the names that all the missionaries wrote down. On this occasion, there were very few who closed the doors and many more who opened, those who shook our hands and squeezed us tightly, those who cried, those who asked please pray for me, I have been here for 14 days and I already want to go home. It is important to emphasize that for just one person all the “effort” would be worth it, as Pascal said “one soul is more important than the whole universe”; so many times we worry about the quantity and not the quality. Also at that moment a sister passed by and with great joy congratulated us and encouraged us to continue, almost as if Mary herself was greeting us.
We count on your prayers so that the next visit will be the same or if possible even better than this one, because with the little we have taken with us we leave with much more, how important it is to go to the encounter with Christ!
SSI Central Hospital
Original: Spanish 2023-06-20. Translated by: María Aragón, Monterrey, México
-rg
