IN LOVE WITH A DISPLACED GOD

CAS
Aquí

ENG

This piece was recently published in jrs.net webpage. As a matter of fact it is a revised and expanded version of a reflection I wrote in this blog a year and a half ago or so.
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"Paradoxically, it is among those who most intimately know the power of death 

that we find the most stubborn faith in the power of life and, therefore, 

in the power of the God who is the source of life.” 

Roberto Goizueta 

Maban, 5 April 2017 - I hail from Barcelona, Catalonia. I joined the Society of Jesus in 2000 with a deep desire to serve the poor. This initial impulse has been refined and purified from just serving to something deeper and more reciprocal, which is journeying with those at the margins of history and society. I have been privileged to be able to be with JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service) for some years now. First in Liberia, later briefly in Nogales (USA-México border), more recently in Kakuma camp (Kenya) and now in Maban (South Sudan).

Sharing with refugees I realize that what really drains their energy is the memory of the brutality of what they had to go through, the loss of their beloved ones and most of all the uncertainty of when this too long exile will finally end. The longing of their homeland is an open wound in their hearts. Thus, in a real sense, as a fellow Jesuit once said, being with JRS means touching the failure of humanity in its most radical expression.

However, in Liberia, Nogales, Kakuma and Maban I have witnessed that the lives of the forcibly displaced are not only cramped by sorrow, wretchedness, violence and suffering but also punctuated by joy, celebration, healing, transformation and beauty. With the refugees I have experienced time and time again that mysterious human capacity to celebrate life in the midst of death.

I was recently meditating with this beautiful prayer attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe, the founder of JRS:

"Nothing is more practical than finding God,
than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything."

And it dawned on me:

Indeed, I have really found God in the forcibly displaced,
I am really in Love in a quite absolute and final way
My imagination is full of faces - both joyful and sad - of displaced people,
I get out of bed because of the displaced,
in the evenings I prepare things so as to be a better companion to them the following day,
Over the weekends I celebrate mass with them,
I read about them, I know so many of them by their name,
It breaks my heart when I witness once more women and children having to run away from home,
I wonder in amazement at the joy and hope they share with me.

Yes, I think I am madly in love and I shall stay in love with God, a displaced God.
It has decided everything in my life.

Thank you JRS for making it possible, for allowing me to journey with the forcibly displaced and discover God with and in them.