German Events and Solidarity behind the Curtain

After a long silence we are back with some precious and interesting news on our past weeks after the echo of congratulations for the summit has ceased.
I was honored with personal greetings and thanks by our new Archbishop, Stephan of Freiburg, and other key religious and civil authorities for the solidarity work accomplished over the past 50 years in this blessed and generous region of Germany.
New requests for financial help have reached our entity, mainly from Africa but recently also from DPP structures in India especially from Sivagangai for their disabled center. We are quite sure to succeed at Mission Munich. We have been asked by em. Bishop Rainer Klug, during his visit to the Procure and to St. Louis Guanella Mission at Pforzheim on April 13, 2016, to stay and get more involved in the daily life of the neighboring German parishes and the Polish immigrant centers in our district, as well as Catholic refugees from Syria and Iraq relocated to the area.
The last opportunity was to join local pastors and other Catholics from E.C. in celebrating Corpus Domini in the small town of Hamberg on a splendid sunny day, crossing colorful walkways decorated with fresh flowers ending in an altar carpet of flowers with the symbols of the Mercy Jubilee. We listened and meditated on the Gospel of St. Luke 9-1-17.
During this time, I was concerned about a sad story I heard from Brother Mauro in Manila: a young woman who died simply because she and her family could not buy Penicillin. Immediately we, Puentes/Spain and the Sisters of the German Pious Union at Münstertal-Black Forest,  began to make plans. We would begin an intensive fundraising campaign with them in their four hospitals, with the help of their almost 70,000 members in the St. Josef Confraternity, with doctors, and the support of the families of Italian immigrants. The specific purpose is to create at Guanella Center, Quezon City a large, well supplied pharmacy, offering necessary medicine against TBC and other infectious illnesses. This new medical center should operate as a “Good Samaritan Pharmacy” for the poor of greater Manila. We are going to print 1000 small fliers for distribution in Spain, Italy, France, Germany.
During our meeting on May 30, 2016, with General Mother Simone of the St. Josef nuns who promised that their congregation will continuously support our projects and immediately they offered Mrs. Inge Lombardo as lay ambassador for this initiative.
A painting by “Joey” one of the squatters, shows a poor child offering to the condemned and enchained Jesus a mere small glass of water. We should reflect on this gesture and on the skeletal, dying Emy, in front of her children. Emy did not need to die, simply for being too poor without an advocate. No one was there offering even a small bottle of penicilin.
We therefore encourage our confreres wherever they are, in the Name of the Merciful God and our Founder, St. Louis Guanella, to knock at our door, that of Puentes and  the Abbey of our beloved and generous Daughters of St. Josef in Germany. We promise to do our best to support you in your daily efforts, tender love toward the poorest among the poor, because Jesus is hidden within them.
Mary, Mother of Holy Providence will do the rest, linking our hearts, hands and feet…
Let us thank God for His copious grace and gifts.
Gero Lombardo
Guanellian German Procure

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