I am Federico Costa, 31 years old, I come from a village in the Province of Vicenza, in the north-east of Italy. In the year 2014, I came in touch with the missionary world thanks to an initiative for the youth to offer them a “missionary experience”.
Fr. Luciano Bicego, the promoter of this, after one year of reflection and sharing about his experience in Thailand with the Xaverian Missionaries, asked me to join the group of formators as a lay formator.
The Philippines are a new destination for our group, we didn’t have yet any mission-experience witness about it and so I joyfully accepted the opportunity of joining the Xaverian Missionaries to come to know their work in Manila. I arrived on July 27 and I will stay for two weeks at Saint Francis Xavier Parish in Quezon City.
Every morning at 6,00 the Prayer of Lauds is the beginning of the day. The rest changes according to the program. We try to follow the daily activity of the fathers and as they are working in a parish we accompany them in their pastoral ministry. This allows us to live in close contact with the Christians of the parish we already met at the daily mass. Here every place is good for celebrating the Eucharist: the parish church, the small chapels in the areas, the commercial buildings, the schools.
We are having the experience of a church not restricted to a central building but mostly outside it. It is a church as community, active in the streets of the areas to share the joy of the Gospel. Every week some people are ready to open their houses to welcome others ready to share their life experiences inspired by the readings of the week. Others visit the sick people of the area to offer support and bring the communion. The younger ones take care of the catechism for the children. Others are committed to the choir and others again are beginning an activity for ecumenical dialogue and wishing to arrive at the inter-religious dialogue. You really can breathe the desire and the commitment to be of service.
It is difficult to talk about challenges when you receive such an extraordinary acceptance and the only challenge is to forget the suspicion we usually nourish about unknown people. Living with them made me think about what afflicts me when I am home, selfishness. The more we possess and the more we want to possess. Here they have little but they share it. So there was no difficulty in coming in touch with this culture even though we were 16 hours flight away from home. The difficulties come only from the language and from the fact that we live in a big city and so traffic and pollution are unimaginable. But the hospitality offered by the Filipinos we come in touch with eliminates any negative aspect. The difficulty will be back home where we will be living comfortably after what we have experienced here.
What you won’t be able to forget: I was struck by a fact because of its simplicity and great value: after eating and just before standing up to go home a person picked up all the leftovers in a little bag and put everything in order in the trail. Surprised I asked why she put everything in order, it didn’t look like a self-service restaurant. The answer is very simple for someone who is used to change perspective and identify with the other. She had already seen in this little gesture a help for the servant who would come to clean up. A little gesture that doesn’t cost us anything, but for the one on the other side can change the day.