`Laura` Home opens its doors
<em>`Laura`</em> Home opens its doors
On October 7, 2016, at 5:30 PM, under the protection of Our Lady of the Rosary, the Salesian parish priest blessed a little house for welcoming migrants inside the premises of the Generalate in Rome dedicated to Laura Vicuña who migrated with her family from Chile to Argentina in search of safety and a better future.
Our Mother, Mother Yvonne Reungoat who was present at the blessing, recalled that “Pope Francis, in the Angelus of September 6, 2015 said, ‘I call upon the parishes, religious communities, monasteries, and the Shrines of Europe, beginning with my diocese of Rome, to express the concreteness of the Gospel and receive a family of refugees. It is a concrete gesture in preparation for the Holy Year of Mercy.’ We felt addressed personally and we sought to immediately find a place where we could accept people and give them hospitality...Unfortunately, the places available in the house did not respond to the parameters called for by the civil laws for housing migrants and refugees…Thus, the idea was born of a small house for them in the garden of the Generalate, sacrificing a bit of space and of finances…”.
The house has room to receive two nuclear families or a group of young people. For now, a young family with a mother, father, and child will be housed there. It is an African couple that needs to find serenity, joy, and hope for the future, aiming for an enduring integration in Italy.
Mother termed it a ‘holy family’ that will help us as well, as persons and as community, to open ourselves to others, to diversity, to those who have no security. Mother continued that our hope is that like Laura in the school of Junin, those who are received in this house will feel it as a safe port that will prepare them to launch themselves into society as responsible and autonomous persons, able to bring their contribution to Rome, to Italy, to Europe and if it is in God’s plan, to return to their countries enriched in humanity in order to contribute to their peaceful growth.
We wish for Laura Home, entrusted to the community of the Generalate, and also for the many houses of Italy and the world that are opened and will open each day to provide hospitality and acceptance, a life that is fruitful, rich with joy, benevolence, and reciprocal encouragement thus living concretely the Good News of being neighbor to those who have need of our love.
FLICKR PHOTOS