With more than 500 years of existence, does it make sense to maintain the spirit of volunteer and brother that has characterized the Santas Casas da Misericórdia?

We live frantically every minute in an intensity of rhythms and speeds as if we force ourselves to experience, feel and know everything. In this hallucinating rhythm, of apparent happiness, one experiences so fast that the taste of life as if it were smoky in a meaningless path. It’s other lives in a global village that come home to us unexpectedly and without asking permission, whether through traditional media or social networks.

Indeed, in a globalised world influenced by a media that is often biased, by a global policy against information and by intrusive and aggressive social networks, sometimes we have little lucidity to understand that happiness is based more on being than having.

For those who seek to be, volunteering is one of the doors that can open to new worlds, new experiences and new horizons that complete and enrich us.

The search for meaning for life by the time it is offered to have, can be directed to different paths. One of the chosen ways was to volunteer at the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Fatima-Ourém, for the simple reason that I chose Christ as my guide.

Volunteering in the Santa Casa is not about being an amateur of charity. The little charity is segregating, does not see in the other a brother, a similar, does not see Christ. Instead, full charity is the greatest of goods because it lends itself to the service of the Other for love, without expecting any reward, only for love of God and neighbor. I believe that millennial values maintain a disturbing current that challenges us and disturbs us every day. In this restlessness, a spirit of mission pervades us that impels us to be social actors rather than mere spectators. What good is faith if it is not accompanied by works?

I believe, therefore, that the spirit of solidarity and charity in Christ is as present and revolutionary as it was two thousand years ago or 500 years ago when the first Santa Casa da Misericórdia was created. This spirit expects from us a voluntary, selfless and charitable surrender. However, it also imposes on us constant attention to the evolution of times and society and in this sense to be voluntary and brother is also to be willing to learn and grow in the gifts of wisdom, humility and solidarity and to equip ourselves with technical skills, Of rigour and knowledge, that we may continue the high work of charity and mercy, which magnifies in the spirit of the willing.

Deeply grateful to life!

Fernanda Rosa