Saturday May 20th: A Liberating Question: How Can We Help?

“If you ask anything of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.”

 John 16:23-28

I recall the story of Servol. In his book Servol – the Mole Cricket, Fr Gerry Pantin shares how he and Wes Hall going up Laventille in the wake of the 1970 uprisings in Trinidad, asked the youth on the block, “How can we help?” This is the question of Jesus, asked in his name to the Father about this world. It requires us to listen deeply to the responses from those to whom we pose the question.

It is a liberating question for us as questioner and for the responder. For the questioner it moves from self to the other, from telling to asking, from treating others as objects, to seeing them as subjects of their own development; for the responder, the freedom to articulate their truest desire which would set them on the path of transformation. It is the most arduous process that eludes us both in the time of Jesus, and now.

Lord, we thank you for your Word and work in this world, for your model followed by organizations like Servol that engage the world of the dispossessed and marginalized in the liberating love of the Father.