These people who interest anyone

When I started to proclaim the gospel, I turned to the "different", you know, the ones that do not interest anyone. I was talking to a young man begging on the street in my town of Vannes. He said to me, "You know, nobody pays attention to people like us. Look, I'm going to put my arm in front of the passing lady, and she's not going to look at me." When this passer-by arrived, he put his arm in front of her, as if to prevent him from passing, and she simply walked around him without even turning his gaze to him. She did not look at him !

The Church is very often like this woman, ignoring those people who are not interested. Among the first people to whom I announced the Gospel were prostitutes, beggars, and people who would be hard pressed to invite home... I spoke of the Lord to some people who smelled of urine I entered several apartments several times where I took out the clothes completely impregnated with a smell of tobacco, I took the hand, to pray for them, of people who were blowing with their fingers, others who smelled alcohol, another one who was bloody hands after falling, drunk. I helped a woman I talked to about the Lord to clean her clothes. She put them in trash bags. Even after 2 washes at high temperatures, the clothes still smelled bad...

Why did this happen to me ? Has it ever happened to you ? It happened to me because I had eyes to see them, simply, because I knew how to make myself available at several important moments... I felt compassion. I am not yet at the stage of the good Samaritan, but I go forward, by not closing my eyes to those people who do not interest anyone. If already, we can not close our eyes, but open them to see these people in need, we will have taken a big step. Then, one day, we will heal their wounds, we will take them in our arms, we will bring them to the hotel and we will pay for their recovery.

Jeremy Sourdril