Caracas (Venezuela), 10/11/2022, Sr. Nícida Leal.- I want to begin my reflection in the light of Luke, 10, 23-24: “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!For I tell you avthat many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” This text suits Marie Poussepin very well, because she saw and heard what others did not see or hear. But what did she see and hear?

Marie Poussepin saw and heard, what she contemplated in silence and searched for in the existential peripheries of her time, there she discovered and contemplated the Word incarnated, in the harshest realities of life, where human dignity, the most sacred of God, was disfigured, and at the risk of falling through misery and ignorance into the chaos of life, namely, the multiple forms of domestic and sexual exploitation, labor slavery, the abuse of power in front of the vulnerability that it exposes the person to dehumanizing situations, contrary to the original project of God, who creates man and woman in his image and likeness.

Marie Poussepin, she saw and heard the silent cry of the hidden God in a village devastated “by war, famine and epidemics, and where ignorance was great to say the least” (IP). Inspired by God and with the power of the Spirit, she decided to take seriously what her heart told her. She begins her charismatic itinerancy to give her body and she looks for "young people from the countryside, without asylum and without resources, to educate them in the fear of God, and teach them to work to earn a living" (IP)

Marie Poussepin assumes Charity as the founding key of her institution, and thus, a Charisma is born that responds to the multiple forms of domestic and sexual exploitation, labor slavery, to which the youth of her time was exposed. Her intuitive wisdom was leading her to do what is right in the eyes of God, to namely, the recovery and salvation of human dignity, until reaching fullness in Christ who transforms and liberates every dehumanizing situation and condition.

Marie Poussepin was able to read in her time the dehumanizing dynamics of trafficking person, and she acted accordingly. Charity leads her to offer young people an alternative lifestyle, which promotes them and, at the same time, frees them from falling into the seductive trap of earning a living in any form of work that in the long run leaves a deep wound in their lives. She chooses to create safe spaces in the care and promotion of life.

Today we understand that the Charism of Marie Poussepin responds to all times because it is based on Charity, which is God himself, and God is Love. In our hands Marie Poussepin, entrusted the work that Providence began with her. But we know that if we lose the horizon of Charity, an Institute inspired by God dies to respond without excluding anyone, but knowing that "the poor have their preference and request"

Today we too are called to train our gaze and our listening preference, in the contemplative silence of the Word that sends us to discover the hidden God in the existential peripheries of the lives of our brothers and sisters, both in the community and in the mission, and thus, to create safe and alternative spaces in the care and promotion of life to grow humanly, until reaching fullness in Christ who saves us and frees us.

We will be happy if we see the hidden God, where he wants us to be serving him in Charity.