Heart’s Home is not a solution, it’s a small sign

This homi­ly of Rev. Thierry de Roucy was held dur­ing the Sending Forth mass of mis­sion­ar­ies in Noyon (France) on September 14, 1996.

Six years ago, a few young peo­ple were stand­ing here in front of me, a bit afraid but full of courage. Just like you, they were about to leave for a Heart’s Home, ei­ther in Argentina or in Brazil. They did not know what to ex­pect. Neither did we. They were go­ing, like pi­oneers, to cross the bor­ders of two slums where many in­hab­i­tants of the ci­ty didn’t dare to en­ter.

Everything has changed. This year, about fifty young peo­ple will leave France to join one of our ap­prox­i­mate­ly twen­ty Heart’s Homes. And many other vol­un­teers com­ing from var­i­ous coun­tries will al­so com­mit them­selves in Heart’s Home com­mu­ni­ties. Moreover, thou­sands of god­par­ents and friends sup­port us. In many coun­tries, lo­cal as­so­ci­a­tions were cre­at­ed in order to help us. Many ar­ti­cles were pub­lished about us, in about twen­ty lan­guages. All over the world, bish­ops re­quest us to set­tle a Heart’s Home in their dio­ce­ses. Furthermore, we were grant­ed some awards. And many young peo­ple ac­knowl­edge that, be­cause of their liv­ing com­pas­sion in such a rad­i­cal way in Heart’s Home, their lives will nev­er be the same again. For all the­se rea­sons, I re­joice. Six years ago, I would nev­er have imag­ined such de­vel­op­ments. I would nev­er have be­lieved that our Association would be­come fa­mous so quick­ly, and, in many cas­es, ap­pre­ci­at­ed. I would nev­er have thought of the way it would boost my own con­gre­ga­tion, and provide us so many friends all over the world. Today, I want to thank God for the growth of our Association, for its fruit­ful­ness and the tremen­dous good it did for the chil­dren in the de­pressed ar­eas where we are set­tled, but al­so for the vol­un­teers, their god­par­ents and fam­i­lies. Such a weak and young as­so­ci­a­tion…

Nevertheless, I’m often wor­ried and afraid about this quick growth, this rel­a­tive fame, which could be­come very dan­ger­ous. They could make us be­lieve that Heart’s Home has some im­por­tance, that Heart’s Home “is go­ing well”. We could for­get that, for us, go­ing well is walk­ing on wa­ter, that Heart’s Home is on a knife-edge. We could al­so for­get that God is the one to lead the Association and to make it fruit­ful, and that the vol­un­teers, like the lead­ers, don’t re­al­ly mat­ter. Heart’s Home is very weak. Firstly be­cause of the vol­un­teers’ weak­ness­es. They are young, in­ex­pe­ri­enced, not as well trained as we would like them to be. They are often re­placed, make many blun­ders and don’t speak the lan­guage of their friends well enough. They are some­times fed up with their mis­sion, and close their doors too often. They are not al­ways healthy.And, just like the dis­ci­ples, there are on­ly a hand­ful, there is an in­suf­fi­cient quan­ti­ty to re­spond to all the de­mands. The founder and the peo­ple in charge of Heart’s Home are not strong. They are often tired and fail to en­cour­age or cor­rect the vol­un­teers in a prop­er way. They may not dare to face the most con­cern­ing is­sues, may act too cow­ard­ly or too im­pru­dent­ly. They do not lis­ten at­ten­tive­ly enough to the shouts of the chil­dren, as if it was not nec­es­sary any more. They do not pray enough, they waste time in do­ing unim­por­tant things. They are not con­fi­dent enough, and lack com­mu­nion skills. And the Association has lit­tle fi­nan­cial and hu­man re­sources: we do not have any pri­vate in­come, and there is no guar­an­tee that we will find enough vol­un­teers. In the end, we are con­cerned about the vol­un­teers’ safe­ty. They don’t have any body­guards, ex­cept their guardian an­gels, and most of the ar­eas where they are set­tled are quite dan­ger­ous, even the po­lice don’t dare to en­ter them.

The list of our weak­ness­es is far from be­ing ex­haus­tive. But it is enough to show that Heart’s Home is small and frag­ile, and re­lies on­ly on God. The “suc­cess” of Heart’s Home is on­ly a sign of the boun­ty of God and of the sup­port of the Virgin Mary. The rest does not mat­ter. That is why Heart’s Home can­not claim to be a so­lu­tion to the prob­lems of the chil­dren, to suf­fer­ing and de­spair. Heart’s Home is not a rem­e­dy for the world’s dis­tress. Its ef­fi­cien­cy is tiny. So what is Heart’s Home? It’s a sign. A small sign. And the vol­un­teers can­not claim to ful­fil their mis­sion to­tal­ly, to be im­por­tant peo­ple, even if their names are quot­ed in news­pa­pers, to be heroes. So what are they? They are, like their founder, sin­ners who try, day after day, to an­swer the call of God, and to re­ly more on faith, hope and char­i­ty. Heart’s Home is a sign show­ing how the pow­er of God is act­ing with­in hu­man weak­ness­es. Heart’S Home is such a weak as­so­ci­a­tion, but this very weak­ness at­tracts God. We can imag­ine that, in heav­en, God some­times sits with his min­is­ters for a meet­ing and says: “Poor vol­un­teers, they are so small, so vul­ner­a­ble in their slums, they find it so dif­fi­cult to love in truth and to bear fruit, that they re­al­ly need our help. We can’t leave them alone…” And God acts. He helps them to learn lan­guages and gives them a surge of strength. His Presence trans­forms the sim­ple pres­ence of the vol­un­teers, so that their sights and words be­come fruit­ful, in an un­sus­pect­ed way. Once, a Missionary on­ly told a preg­nant wom­an, who se­cret­ly in­tend­ed to have an abor­tion, “I’ll pray for your child”, so that this moth­er be­came aware of the life grow­ing in her, and changed her mind. Another Missionary on­ly smiled to a passer­by and greet­ed her, so that this wom­an re­dis­cov­ered the beau­ty of life and dropped the idea of com­mit­ting sui­cide.

Only one thing could pre­vent God from sup­port­ing us: pride, the be­lief that we can re­ly on our­selves to meet our friends’ needs. The on­ly dis­as­ter that threat­ens Heart’s Home is be­hav­ing in a self-im­por­tant way. It means that the on­ly valu­able prayer for the growth of Heart’s Home―we are so anx­ious­ly await­ed in many coun­tries―and for its fruit­ful­ness is a prayer ask­ing for the gift of hu­mil­i­ty. This is what will en­able Heart’s Home to re­main a sign, the sign that “God lifts up the low­ly and casts down the mighty from their thrones, He fills the hun­gry with good things and sends the rich away emp­ty.” This is what will en­able Heart’s Home to re­main a fruit of the boun­ty of the Virgin Mary, and God will act to­wards us as He act­ed to­wards the Virgin Mary, his hum­ble ser­vant. Heart’s Home is the sign of God’s love, hum­bling him­self Heart’s Home is the sign that God glo­ries in the weak­ness­es of poor hu­man be­ings, that He re­joic­es among our chil­dren. When a Heart’s Home com­mu­ni­ty set­tles in a new area, and the vol­un­teers en­ter our friend’s hous­es, the mys­tery of Incarnation con­tin­ues. So does the mys­tery of the Visitation! The Lord quiv­ers with joy in the heart of those who bear Him. The Visitation is re­al­ly the mys­tery of God’s joy. And this is all the more true for Christmas. God-with-us! God is here with hu­man­i­ty! Imagine God’s joy… God re­veals his close­ness to us, God says to the poor: “Don’t be afraid! I have mer­cy on you! I’m not afraid, nei­ther of rob­bers, nor of liars or vi­o­lent peo­ple. They are all in­vit­ed to come to My place, they are not sent away from My Heart. Would they on­ly meet my Gaze, just like Peter after the cock’s crow, and en­ter!”

Heart’s Home is a sign that God didn’t aban­don hu­man­i­ty, that He is tri­umph­ing over sin, that He doesn’t fear hu­man dis­tress, and is ac­tu­al­ly the One to wash the feet of the small and pu­ri­fy their hearts. Heart’s Home is sim­ply the sign that God loves us, par­tic­u­lar­ly the most re­ject­ed of us, and that each of our names is en­graved on the palm of His Hands. In dis­cov­er­ing that they mat­ter to the mis­sion­ar­ies, our friends dis­cov­er that they mat­ter to God. And that is quite a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the mis­sion­ar­ies, that is your own and on­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ty: let your love re­veal the love of God. Love is our on­ly means to ful­fil our mis­sion of evan­ge­liza­tion. Love with bare hands. Love un­til the end. Trustful love. Heart’s Home is a sign of re­al fruit­ful­ness We are over­whelmed with fig­ures, data, pa­pers and ad­ver­tise­ments. We are as­sault­ed by pic­tures, shouts and nois­es. We are im­pressed by ex­pen­sive and shiny things. According to such cri­te­ria, Heart Home is noth­ing. At least, I hope so. God loves hid­den, small and si­lent things. It is dif­fi­cult to be­lieve this, when the whole world says the op­po­site. Fruitfulness has noth­ing to do with ef­fi­cien­cy. Quality has noth­ing to do with quan­ti­ty. Being ap­par­ent­ly so unim­por­tant, Heart’s Home wants to show this very truth, which has noth­ing to do with com­mon log­ic, but that many hearts un­der­stand.

This leads us to a para­dox. Insofar as Heart’s Home con­sid­ers it­self as ‘dirt’, as the low­est of the low of all NGOs, so­cial foun­da­tions and char­i­ties, it may hap­pen that it mat­ters. Heart’s Home will be able to play a sig­nif­i­cant role pro­vid­ed that its mem­bers re­main con­vinced not to mat­ter at all. Insofar as the vol­un­teers know, often from painful ex­pe­ri­ence, that there is noth­ing they can change in them­selves and their friends, they will be­come almighty. “Y­ou will per­form even greater works”. To the ex­tent that we are mute and pow­er­less, like lambs be­ing forced in­to the slaugh­ter­house, we’ll be elo­quent and fruit­ful.

During the li­tur­gy of bap­tism, the priest, anoint­ing with the holy Chrism, says: “God now anoints you with the Chrism of sal­va­tion. As Christ was anoint­ed Priest, Prophet and King, so may you al­ways live as mem­bers of His Body, shar­ing ev­er­last­ing life.” As you com­mit your­selves in Heart’s Home, you are, in a very pro­found way, shar­ing the mis­sion of Jesus Christ, as priest, prophet and king. You do not join an as­so­cia­tive busi­ness, you en­dorse a mis­sion of sal­va­tion and re­demp­tion, along with all those who al­ready an­swered “yes” to the one and on­ly Missionary ask­ing them “What do you want?” The new covenant that you swear to­day with Jesus Christ through your com­mit­ment, makes you priests, as your main mis­sion is to give your­self up to the Father, so as to bring all His scat­tered chil­dren back to Him. It makes you prophets, as your life must dis­play God to ev­ery­one. It makes you kings, as you ex­pe­ri­ence in your hearts and in your bod­ies the hu­mil­i­a­tion of ser­vants. In other words, your com­mit­ment in Heart’s Home, even if it is on­ly tem­po­rary, helps you to ful­fill your bap­tismal com­mit­ment and your mis­sion of be­ing dis­ci­ples of Jesus Christ.

May Mary, spouse of the Holy Spirit and Mother of com­pas­sion guide you on this way of hap­pi­ness, from which she nev­er strayed!