Espirizilda Veri, whose nickname Ging-ging narrates her experience of building communion in her parish.

My name is Ging-ging, an active parish worker in Sto. Rosario Parish in Cebu City. Our parish priest, after having attended the Focolare Summer Mariapolis, was quite impressed by the spirit he found there and became very enthusiastic about witnessing to unity in the parish. With the desire to make of our parish a home and a school of communion, he asked us to initiate the Word of Life meeting in the parish where the emphasis would not be on studying, but on learning how to put the Gospel into practice, and thereafter sharing concrete experiences about living the Gospel at home, at work, with friends and in the parish.

In the parish, humanity is heterogeneous. At times it’s hard to build unity in this small portion of humanity. I saw that the key to building a family in the parish lies in loving, which means serving concretely every “neighbor” so that our community may become a true family in God. Indeed, we had concrete occasions to serve our “neighbors” in the parish. When typhoon Yolanda hit us in the Central Philippines, our parish priest called on the parishioners to respond to the needs of our brothers and sisters who were greatly affected by the calamity. Our Word of Life group immediately responded to the call by distributing relief goods. We chose Malapascua, Daanbantayan of Northern Cebu, a place badly hit, where one of our former priests in the parish had been newly assigned. Providence arrived from one of my co-parishioners in Sto. Rosario, who offered their truck to transport the goods. When we arrived in Malapascua, the parish community there had already prepared a pump boat to transport the goods to the islands affected by the typhoon. We never got tired despite the long trip and we felt so much joy that we were offered the opportunity to love everyone by giving out the relief goods. The people too were so happy that they really felt the love of God through the help of many others.

Through these experiences, I realized that a parish is alive, where there is Jesus in the midst of its parishioners, generated by the mutual love among its members. The spirituality of communion that we try to live in the parish enables us to share each other’s joys and sufferings, to attend to another’s needs and to offer deep and genuine friendship.

Another experience took place when a big fire almost consumed the whole area of Lorega, a locality near our parish. Immediately our parish priest called on all parishioners to help the fire victims, as some of the victims were also serving in the parish. Sacks of rice, canned goods, noodles, sardines and clothes poured in continuously…

Then a Divine Word Missionary (SVD) priest asked me to design a model house for 36 houses to be built and distributed to fire victims who were beneficiaries of the SVD social action program. The lot size for each house was too small so I made a three-storey house design in order that all family members could fit in.

Now there was this couple who was not a beneficiary of their program but was in dire need. We wanted to include them as recipients of the housing program for they were badly affected, not being able to salvage their possessions and clothes. The only clothes they had left were the clothes that they were wearing that day. In our Word of Life group, we asked Jesus that they could also be a recipient of this housing. After our prayer, I had the courage to ask the priest-in-charge of the program if it would be possible for this couple to avail of the housing since they were also servers in the parish. To my joy the priest agreed. The couple was overjoyed that now they too can have a house to live in.

However, a problem befell this couple whom we had helped secure a house from the SVD housing project. The husband became a drug dependent. In him we could recognize a face of Jesus crucified and forsaken whom we all tried to embrace and love as a community. We really prayed that this man would come to his senses and realize that his lifestyle was detrimental to himself as well as to his family. Thanks to God’s grace, at one point he himself expressed a desire for rehabilitation. The community pooled their resources together to raise the amount needed for his one-year program in the rehabilitation center of Fazenda da Espernca. Fazenda is a unique rehabilitation program because there they don’t use medicines but train people to work in the fields and to farm, while at the same time undergo spiritual formation. Thankfully, he was able to finish the yearlong program and became a different person. Now he is back with his family and our community.

In the spirituality of communion we don’t keep our discovery of God’s love to ourselves, but share it with others. We search for the positive in others, in order to welcome it and value it as a gift from God: not only as a gift for the brother or sister who had received it directly, but also as a present for others who receive it from them in a spirit of reciprocity. Reciprocity makes all of us shine more as children of God, made in his likeness and image, and called to be one community in communion with God and neighbor, and thus helping the parish be part of a communion of communities.

Esperizilda Veri, is a Civil Engineer who works in Cebu City.