“To be beggars in the midst of those who already have such little bread…”

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Our First Steps in Latin America: Chile, January 1989

In the middle of a very poor población, the two of us little sisters were praying with the bishop of Linares and the parish priest, in a little  ‘chapel shack’. And we said to the Lord: “It’s hard to be beggars amidst those who already have so little bread!”

And so, as we often do in ‘times of distress’, or in those moments where we have great need of the Lord’s light, we opened the Bible, and stumbled upon this very beautiful passage of the ‘widow of Zarephath’ (1 Kings 17:7-16), where Elijah asks a little widow for something that she no longer has: “a morsel of bread from her hand.” Nevertheless, with the little she has left, she goes to bake bread, and God’s promise comes to fruition: “The jar of meal shall not be spent, and the cruse  of oil shall not fail!”

I understood in my heart that as for us, we needed to continue as beggars, and that God, for his part, would bless the poor multiplying  their bread and oil!

The next day, we returned to that población to beg in this country for the first time: on a street corner, we begged of a little old grandmother.

– How can I give to passers-by when I don’t even have enough for all these children? she asked, showing us the five little ones who were with her.

And so we made friends. We spoke about the children, about her; and then we each went our separate ways, happy to have encountered one another. Her name was Laurentina.

Then a man called out to us, and we had to walk back in front of the house we had just left. Fortunately so! Because that little grandmother was about to run after us. She was yelling to us:

– Hermanitas! Hermanitas! [1]

She offered us a warm, round loaf of bread, which she had baked under the ashes!

The Scriptures described in those same terms the loaf of bread Elijah had received from the widow of Zarephath.  Yes, the widow of Zarephath was named Laurentina. This little widow made us think of the Gospel passage where another widow gave “everything she had” – “her whole life” (cf  Mark 12:44).

This is the heart of our purpose of life: the ‘indigencies’ that our father Dominic left as our inheritance, in this life given over to ‘abjection and voluntary poverty’[2], in order to announce the Gospel.


[1] Translation: Little sisters!  Little sisters!

[2] Cf.  The early texts: Pontifical Bull from Honorius III to the brethren of the Order of Preachers, 12 December 1219.

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