Lima (Perú), Oscar Melanio Dávila Rojas, professor of "Fe y Alegría".- Can we serve others without expecting anything in return or, without pursuing some petty interests of our own? Perhaps, this was the question that Marie Poussepin answered through her example. She devoted her life and actions for the service of the neediest, the forgotten and the frail persons and those who expect very little or almost nothing from society and life.
Marie PoussepinMarie Poussepin served those who were less favored because she felt that they were her extended family. All these persons whom she loved with great tenderness and cured through her charity, learned to love in the same way as she loved them. They saw her as a patient, sweet, pious and protecting mother. She served them and at the same time taught them to serve others. Marie proposed an education with great emphasis on tolerance, equality, correction, truth and tenderness: “Be filled with tenderness toward the children that you teach, and watchful over them, try to make them both respect and love you. Be gentle without being weak, firm without being harsh, serious without being haughty. Reprimand without anger. Show no less love for the poor than for the rich and, above all, take great care to benefit equally the souls of both, by your words and example.”
The celebration of the birth of this Daughter of Dourdan confirms once more, the recognition that is given to this woman, this blessed woman of tenderness, the social apostle of charity as Pope John Paul II would call her, who was born 364 years ago, marked with an extraordinary love for the neighbor and especially for the unprivileged little boys and girls. The celebration of her feast gives us “the opportunity to reflect together on the precious gift of our own life and families.”