Essentially, and this is very important in everything we do, we try to understand the way of God. We do not have an action plan set out in advance. We always try to listen to the people we meet, at events, and in other various situations. When we have understood what to do, we try to respond, believing that it is really Jesus who is calling. The most important thing is “real” fidelity. We must truly believe that Jesus is in us, with his incarnation he is in our lives and inside men’s destiny. He constantly appeals to us ; it is for us to respond.
New men and women ! Upright on their artificial legs.
In order for us to understand and respond to this appeal two very important aspects must never be neglected : prayer and the reading of the Gospel.
Adoring Jesus-Host in Vietnam
“Our working days are identical whether Jesus sends us to towns, villages, refugee camps or leprosy colonies. We get up at five o’clock to say the breviary, pray the rosary and the Eucharistic adoration for at least one hour before starting our manual labour. The start of the prayer is essential. It allows us to be face-to-face with God and the Church who appeal to us. When one works in a human environment where there is so much pain and destruction one must really go for it, be carried by the breath of love, and make others discover that God is Love. We no longer just see the physical appearance of that disabled person but understand that the great handicap of man is to be cut off from God.”
Praying the Rosary at Ben San lepers’home (Vietnam)
“Then Faith is a complete surrender to the one who sees for us, who thinks for us, rather than with us. As men our means of expression is often so limited, allowing him to see no further that the tip of his nose and to the tip of his fingers. But if we close our eyes and if we pray, then we enter into the vision of the one who does know the hearts of men, the one who is far away and we begin to love this man. In being available to God, we are also available to all men.”
Father Pierre with a group of Sisters suffering from leprosy in Columbia
“To follow is all we need to do. Our whole lives must become obedient, “filial”, our prayer, our work, and our way to speak. Celebrating the Eucharist, making a prosthesis, operating on a patient,- is always a way of serving God. When we care for someone, it is the same as kneeling before God. “I was sick and you healed me …” says Jesus in the Bible. And Love is catching …”
Patients learn new skills
From a human point of view, it never occurred to us that one day we would go to Astrakhan in Russia, nor to Vietnam, and so many other places.
However after being asked by people to urgently plan a mission, we were given the opportunity to meet with people and in doing so this gave us the opportunity to understand God’s will, to accept and respond to it.
Brothers Jaccard in Siberia