“Who is a saint?” asks the poet Kabir. “He who is mindful of the suffering of others”; and the life of Madeleine Delbrêl (Moussidan 1904–Paris 1964) bears witness to a profound sensitivity to the pain of others and a meaningful way of being present in order to relieve it. 

Pope Francis called her the ‘mystic of the peripheries’, and one of her poems inspired his closing message at the Synod: to live one’s faith not as a burden, but as a dance, ‘as a dance to the universal music of God’s love’.

•    Speaker: Mariola López Villanueva, rscj
•    Moderator: Paula Jordão, fmvd (Formation Coordinator, UISG)
•    Date: 14 & 15 April
•    Time: 2 to 4 pm (Rome time, CET)
•    Registration: https://uisg.net/MadeleineDelbrelRegistration 
•    Languages: ES, EN, IT, FR
•    For whom: Open to all

Guided by Sister Mariola López, RSCJ, we will explore with Madeleine some vital lessons that will enable us to move towards that healing closeness which she experienced and which is so necessary for us in our world.  She understood mission not as a strategy to be followed, but as a quality of presence and relationship: “to penetrate where God is apparently not present, to walk amongst those who do not know him, loving them for who they are, and to walk amongst them reverently, knowing and living the life they live, but walking as men and women inhabited by God”.

Madeleine Delbrêl (contemporary of Etty Hillesum and Dorothy Day), walked in the footsteps of those joyful women (she had a therapeutic sense of humour) who made gratitude their guiding principle, and of those compassionate women who help us understand that the evil we fight against in the outside world is also within (lurking somewhere within us) but, in turn, goodness and the desire for justice, the longing for the life of others and for beauty, tenderness and protection… are also engraved in the innermost depths of every human being; that was Madeleine’s experience, and that is the hope to which she leads us.