Teresa and Zé, a missionary couple, share their experiences of meeting with the international and inter-congregational “Brothers” community in Lebanon.
He came to Nazareth where he had been raised. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the synagogue. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. As he unrolled the scroll, he found the place where it is written: The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me to evangelize the poor; he has sent me to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the favorable time from the Lord. (Lk 4:16-19)
Any member of the Redemptorist family – made up of so many men and women, religious and lay, in so many parts of the world – will have a special affection for this page of the Gospel of Jesus told by Luke. It is the proclamation of the Redemption presented as an irruption of the Spirit and as a program of life, which is why it is a burning flame in the lives of those who identify in a special way with Redemptorist spirituality in the living out of their faith. This is what happens to us, Teresa and Zé, a missionary couple who try to live their faith and vocation within the Redemptorist charism.
This Spirit who sent Jesus to free the poor, the imprisoned and the oppressed is the same Spirit who moved Alphonsus in his encounter with the most abandoned in the Kingdom of Naples and who moves all those who open themselves to his influence today. And since we know that the “Spirit blows where he wills” (Jn 3:8), we believe that he has done so through the words of Pope Francis when he issued the call to the Church, particularly religious institutes, to create missionary communities in frontier places.
One of the responses to this call emerged in Lebanon. They called it Fratelli because they were very good at choosing project names. If the name says it all, then it’s a good name.
This new missionary presence of the Church of Jesus, Fratelli, emerges in a small country, plunged into a major economic and social crisis, where around four million Lebanese live, but not alone. Around three hundred thousand Palestinians have also been living here for decades. Refugees. And in the last decade they have been joined by a million and a half Syrians. Refugees. And in the last year, since October 7, 2023, the conflict in the south and east of Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel has continually generated new fleeing movements. More refugees. And in recent weeks, with the brutal escalation of this conflict, all this has changed once again. An estimated three hundred thousand (Syrians and Lebanese) have already fled to Syria – the only country to which, despite everything, some can escape by land. Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Lebanese refugees in Syria (and also Syrian refugees in Syria). On top of all this, there are currently more than a million internally displaced people, let’s call them that this time to avoid saying the same word again. Refugees. There’s no avoiding it.
The Marist Brothers and the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Brothers) heard that call of the Spirit in the words of Pope Francis and, together, they wanted to try to obey him. To the Spirit. Together they began to create Fratelli almost ten years ago, starting by forming a community of brothers from both institutes in this frontier place, opening themselves up together to the service of these very marginalized and vulnerable groups.
Refugees.
We are here, in the city of Sidon, the same city where Jesus passed through and where today there is a place called Fratelli, and it is from here that we are writing to you.
The proclamation of the Redemption is still a need today. It is no less so now than it was in Alphonsus’ time. You only have to look closely to recognize this anywhere in the world. The days here in Lebanon tell us that we live among the weak and oppressed, marginalized and forgotten. The last of the last. Those who don’t even count in the statistics. The outcasts of an already suffering and vulnerable society. At a time when the various embassies are warning the citizens of their countries to leave this piece of land, these are the ones who have no embassy, nor citizenship. These are the ones who have no place on the repatriation flights, nor even a country to return to.
The proclamation of Redemption is needed in every corner of the world. Here, it becomes urgent too. It becomes urgent to announce that before God they are not excluded, nor marginalized, and even less forgotten; but welcomed, loved and cared for as children. As men and women on the path to humanization.
This proclamation of the Redemption begins by being sought out and lived out in community, among brothers and sisters who are looking for a way of life contrary to that of “save yourself” (Mk 15:30). They called him Fratelli. One can understand why.
The explicit proclamation comes from what springs out of the construction of community life. This is the first great sign of evangelization. Both sign and task, which become more or less fruitful depending on the truth they carry within. Truth, not perfection. And with challenges and difficulties, with riches and opportunities, those who are part of any community. This one adds the particularity of being a community of foreigners in a foreign country, made up of members of different Congregations, among whom we find both religious and lay people. An “inter” community: inter-congregational, inter-vocational, inter-national and inserted in an inter-confessional context sounds like either a utopia or confusion. But it’s not. Neither. It’s a gift that we still don’t know how to thank for. It is a partnership in mission in all its dimensions. It’s living day-to-day in the constant welcoming of others in their totality. It’s living day-to-day constantly giving to others in the totality of oneself. Whether it’s through the meal that everyone prepares with the typical recipe of their country or the daily prayer that brings out the particularity of each charism.
Fratelli is this place, with its feet firmly planted in fraternity, which we try to find in community life, and which extends to the hundreds of children, young people, women and men with whom we share our lives on a daily basis. The fraternity is a large, spacious house with room for everyone, without making it just a slogan: Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, Christians of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions live together in this house, regardless of the rite in which they celebrate their faith. Everyone. Every day.
We are here as witnesses that Redemption transcends all kinds of barriers and, above all, is stronger than violence, war and death. Believing in Jesus, the Redeemer, and placing our hope in him obliges us to live in a communitarian dynamism that is open to the reality that surrounds us and to “strive to encounter the Lord where he is already present and at work in his own mysterious way” (Constitution n. 7). Living as witnesses in a place like this helps us to see that the God of Jesus, our Redeemer, is the one who always remains and endures everything. He is the Redeemer. And despite the absurdity that our eyes see every day, there is a constant and living presence that fulfills his promise of persevering closeness: “I will be with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20). Our Redeemer is.
According to the situations in which they find themselves, they will eagerly try to discover what they should do or say: whether to proclaim Christ explicitly, or confine themselves to the silent witness of brotherly presence. (Constitution n. 8)
