On my way to church this afternoon I met this middle-aged Filipina babysitting her employer’s son Lorenzo. Filipinos are hard to miss in Italy, considering that they number more than 200,000 here. Or a hundred thousand if you don’t count those who have no legal permit of stay in the country.
In the church I participated in the Via Crucis since today is a Lenten Friday. Actually I was late (due to traffic of course!), they were already in the 2nd station when I arrived. Just in case you forgot it, the second station is Jesus receiving His Cross. Every station begins with: we adore you O Christ and we bless you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Not only was I late, now my mind wandered a bit. It was not my first time to participate in the Way of the Cross nor was it my first encounter with a Filipina babysitter. Yet somehow I saw a strong connection between the two. The visual artist in me saw successions of superimposed images: that of Jesus carrying his cross and that of the woman pushing the stroller. As the words “because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world” rang in my ears I thought of how Jesus must have carried the cross with gladness in his heart, though in physical pain, for he was doing it out of love for us.
I also thought about the woman. The heavy stroller she had to push everyday could only symbolize the weight of her sacrifices for her family and for the other people who will benefit from every single euro she earns here in Europe. Somehow I wished that everyone would remember and take the time to thank all those people who have sacrificed for them.
And I asked the Lord to teach me how to give up myself for the sake of the others.
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