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An Invitation to Serve and Share your Faith

For 8 years parish groups, individuals and families have come to the Parish of Santisimo Sacramento (Most Blessed Sacrament) in Piura, Peru to share in the daily work for the poor and also to experience the heroic faith of the people here. Everyday there is something valuable to do for someone who has very basic needs. Sixty-three percent of Piuranos live in poverty and twenty-two percent live in extreme poverty (lacking their daily bread). It is not necessary that material resources are brought to do the work, funding for works already exists, but if resources are brought they are normally used while the benefactors are here. The large parish staff skilled in carpentry, social work, brick laying, etc. and aided by pastoral workers throughout the parish enable visitors to do the work and really contribute to the well being of the most needy.

Lodging is provided by the parish in a 13 bedroom facility capable of sleeping over 40 people. There is also a village retreat house that has 100 beds. To defray the cost of water, gas, electricity we suggest $10.00 a week.

The food in Piura is very good and inexpensive. A broiled chicken dinner with fries, salad and soda for 4 is less than $10.00.

Parish groups normally bring money raised for building homes, chapels, etc., but that is not necessary for visiting families and individuals.

Things to do:

Pray: daily prayer groups in the chapels and daily Eucharist with the people, Weddings, Baptisms, Eucharistic Adoration

Build: a home, a chapel, a school room

Deliver: food packages, beds & blankets, clothing

Gather: children for activities and crafts, families for a picnic

Heal: work with the parish health team, a medical or eye mission, speech therapy, wellness education

Visit: the elderly, the orphanage, your adopted family, the sick, families still unknown, a village at night, sleep in a bamboo home
Play: Fiestas, traditional dances, Soccer, Volleyball

Teach: English to the parish English group or at the local school, other useful skills

Help: the parish lawyer, at the drug rehab program,

Invite: youth to the movies, a group to the ocean

Serve: at the breakfast kitchens, through projects yet to be discovered

The parish is spread out and has many neighborhoods and villages which are visited daily. We usually bring visitors to the Pacific Ocean an hour away. But the spirit of the mission groups that come is to share in the work and pray with the people. Those who stay at the parish do not do a lot of traveling around on their own away from the city, but staff members make excellent guides for exploring the city and neighborhoods of Piura.

Having seen perhaps 1000 missionaries come to the parish no one has returned to the U.S. with malaria or any problems acquired here. Diarrhea is not common, it occurs in some and not in others.

Flying to Piura from Lima is recommended. There is a morning and an evening flight each day.

Most groups come for one or two weeks. Individuals come for months and rent an apartment.

Parish groups visit June through August. Most of the parish staff and myself are either away or on vacation from mid August to mid September.

CARDINAL RATZINGER (Now Pope Benedict XVI): Giving can never mean primarily giving money, that goes without saying. Of course money is also often most necessary. But when money is the only thing that is given, that is often hurtful for the other person. I have seen that again and again in the Third World. If you send us nothing but money, people tell me, then you often do more harm than good. Money is very easily misused in some way and then makes things worse. You must give more than this. You must come yourselves; you must give of yourselves; and you must help, so that the material gifts you bring are used appropriately. "God and the World" (Ignatius Press, 2002) pp. 194-195.

"The poor give us much more than we give them. They’re such strong people, living day to day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We don’t have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them.

And so it is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.

"It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving."

"It hurt Jesus to love us. We have been created in His Image for greater things, to love and to be loved. We just 'put on Christ' as Scripture tells us. And so, we have been created to love as He loves us. Jesus makes Himself the hungry one, the naked one, the homeless one, the unwanted one, and He says, "You did it unto Me." On the last day He will say to those on His right, 'Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to Me', and He will also say to those on His left, 'Whatever you neglected to do for the least of these, you neglected to do it for Me'.

"When He was dying on the Cross, Jesus said, 'I thirst'. Jesus is thirsting for our love, and this is the thirst of everyone, poor or rich alike. We all thirst for the love of others, that they will go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do good to us. This is the meaning of truest love, to give until it hurts.

"There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives - the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. Put your love for them in living action. For in loving them, you are loving God Himself."

"I can never forget the experience I had in visiting a home where they kept all these old parents of sons and daughters who had just put them into an institution and forgotten them - maybe. I saw that in that home these old people had everything - good food, comfortable place, television, everything, but everyone was looking toward the door. And I did not see a single one with a smile on the face. I turned to Sister and I asked: 'Why do these people, who have every comfort here, why are they all looking toward the door? Why are they not smiling?' "I am so used to seeing the smiles on our people, even the dying ones smile. And Sister said: 'This is the way it is nearly every day. They are expecting, they are hoping that a son or daughter will come to visit them. They are hurt because they are forgotten.' And see, this neglect to love brings spiritual poverty.

"You have to be holy in your position as you are, and I have to be holy in the position that God has put me. So it is nothing extraordinary to be holy. Holiness is not the luxury of the few. Holiness is a simple duty for you and for me. We have been created for that." EWTN.com

"When we touch the sick and needy, we touch the suffering body of Christ." "Someone once told me that not even for a million dollars would they touch a leper. I responded: 'Neither would I. If it were a case of money, I would not even do it for two million. On the other hand, I do it gladly for love of God.'" "Do you know that right where you live, there are many people in the streets? Hundreds come every day to our places, just for a little food, a little human warmth, a smile, a handshake-nothing more. Do you know that?" "Since we cannot see Christ, we cannot express our love to Him. But we do see our neighbor, and we can do for him what we would do for Christ if He were visible. Let us be open to God, so that He can use us. Let us put love into action. Let us begin with our family, with our closest neighbors. It is difficult, but that is where our work begins. We are collaborators with Christ."

"At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in.'"