Our sister Elena Díaz Muriel sscc, who currently lives in Seville (Spain) and works in Caritas, tells us in the book ‘A la sombra del Malunggay. Relatos desde el corazón’ (In the shadow of Malunggay. Stories from the heart) her experience of several months in the Philippines.
“Our presence continues to be necessary, in particular as mediators of the Word”
In this book, as the subtitle says ‘stories from the heart’, you offer us the deep experience of your experience in a very poor neighbourhood in the outskirts of the Philippines, Bagong Silang. Is it possible to have poverty, fear, illness, silence and also hope, laughter and music?
Undoubtedly. But only when you ‘consent’ to reality expressing itself for what it is, when you decide to enter it and ‘say yes’ to what it has to say. Then, paradoxically, the place of death becomes fertile ground, where even in the worst scenarios there are signs of the Kingdom and Life. As I say in some of the chapters of the book, I still don't know how this is possible, I can only think of expressing it as the ‘unspeakable paradox’ of the God-with-us of which we have so many examples in the biblical stories.
Did you find it hard to write such a vibrant story?
To answer this question, I invite readers to open the first of the book's chapters, where, under the heading ‘writing’, I try to put words to the process of writing these short stories. Suffice it to say here that this book, which was written in the Philippines, is nothing more than my prayer diary offered, as stated at the beginning, to bear witness that there is light at the end of all battles.
Is there any relationship between the Malunggay tree and God?
Absolutely. There is also a chapter that talks about it. The Malunggay tree, like the God-with-us, lives in the midst of his people. It is a tree that is used for a multitude of foods, soaps, medicines... It is a tall and big tree, but also brittle and tender, and it needs water to be able to give Life. As you can see, everything I say about the tree could well be attributed to God, which is why this book tries to narrate the experience of a people who remain under His shadow.
You also make a point about religious life: ‘Religious life is not only about being with the poor (which is very important); it is also about having free time with the sisters, who can help us to understand what we do and why we do it, with what meaning we live and work’.
I think it is amply demonstrated that mission spaces once inhabited almost exclusively by religious life have come to be run by professionals trained and skilled in social action who do the same as we do, often much better than we do.
Religious life is no longer the only body (thank God) that takes care of ‘the poor’, and from my point of view, it is absolutely necessary that we stop to think about the sense of continuing to inhabit spaces in which we are no longer indispensable.
Is there anything that makes us meaningful? I say, “Definitely yes”. The where and why (or by Whom), we do what we do gives us meaning. Our way of being in the spaces of exclusion is based on the conviction that no life is abandoned to its fate, and that God's promise is and will always be fulfilled in everyone; that suffering, darkness, death, the ‘deaths’ of each day.... they never have the last word.
But discovering this and being here in this way can only happen when my spiritual life, my relationship with the One who has spoken all these words, is ‘alive and effective’. I need to nurture my relationship with God, to spend time with those to whom I have been sent, to create with others ‘Kingdom spaces’ including in our homes where others can come to rest and discover the value of the promises fulfilled.
I believe, therefore, that in these times, our presence continues to be necessary, in particular as mediators of the Word, who in their dedication and witness, speak of the Kingdom of God and of life lived with meaning, drawing from the vocation to which we are all called. What an enormous challenge we still have on our hands! What a great need the world still has for these spaces! So let's get on with it.
You narrate the experience of a foreigner who has been stripped of her abilities, who lives in a humble land where smiles and contact will sprout as the only essential language that heals and brings sisterhood.
When there are no words with which to make ourselves known, or with which to dominate reality, we must learn to see that those ‘other languages’ have always been there, that they are universal and accessible and that they only have one precondition: the desire to meet others, and to let oneself be met.
You have given voice to many stories of people who are on the margins of history. Do you have a particular one in particular?
In response, I will tell one, which I never wrote down and therefore it does not appear in the book. I'm telling it now for the first time. Perhaps this is my way of saying that I keep all the stories that have not yet been told; acknowledging the reality of a people that is far greater than this book has been able to cover.
The rooftop of the house, a lost (but not abandoned) place in the middle of Bagong Silang. It's getting dark, and I'm sitting up on the for my daily reading and prayer time. I hear a distant and very faint laughter and I look around. I see the roofs of my neighbours' houses, all made of metal sheets, with the occasional cement roof as an exception similar to mine. The Malunggay tree sticks out here and there among the shacks and as I scan the rooftops, looking for that innocent-sounding laughter, I discover on a somewhat distant rooftop, a plastic chair, where a mother sits and her daughter plays at combing her hair. The child is between two and three years old, and chattering to her mother amidst the rubble and rubbish, oblivious to the dirt, absorbed in her task of combing her hair.
Here is a miracle in the midst of misery. An effort is being made, invested with the strength of two years of life, to create beauty out of pure love. Even if it seems not to be ‘doing any good’. To strive to ‘beautify’ others. Isn't that what God does? A moment of fullness that pierces reality and reminds us that we are loved, that we are beautiful in the eyes of others (of Another). And that that is all we need.
Link to the book's website:
https://editorial.sanpablo.es/producto/a-la-sombra-del-malunggay/
01/09/2025