September 21 is celebrated as the International Day of Peace, a date set aside by the United Nations to commemorate and strengthen the ideals of peace among all nations and peoples of the world.
In 2025, the theme of this date was “Act now for a peaceful world“, to encourage personal action at the local level, since peace is built by everyone. Thus, several recommendations for actions that anyone can do to promote peace in their environment were shared:
- Engage in discussions on the urgent need to promote understanding, nonviolence and disarmament.
- Volunteering in the community
- Listening to voices other than one’s own
- Challenging discriminatory language
- Reporting harassment
- Verify facts before posting on social networks
The 37th issue of our magazine of reflection, Dialogue and Encounterdealt with this same hot topic, since it was entitled “Peace, the fruit of justice“. Some time ago we shared one of its articles,
Today we share one of the articles of the section Taking Steps. In it, Sister Begoña Fernandez writes from Colombia, and talks about a key action to build peace that is within the reach of all people: the embrace.
The embrace, a contribution to peace
A little boy passes me on the street in the neighborhood and with a smile he says “Goodbye, little sister”. “Bye, sweetheart,” I reply and, surprised, he says: “I’m not sweetheart, I’m Juan Carlos”. It makes me laugh, but leaves me thinking. Surely he has never heard that word or any word like it at home. Perhaps, he has been addressed other words, not very nice, which I do not name, but I often hear them, sometimes together with harsh warnings such as “I’ll ruin you”, “I’ll bring you to your knees”, “I’ll hit you with the leash” ….. And the worst thing is that they are not just threats.
We know that peace begins in the heart of each person and children learn at home, in the warmth of the family, the attitudes of peace that will form them to be a good person, capable of sowing peace around them. In our environment, machismo and child abuse are problems that are still far from being overcome. Sometimes, even at school, one can see the “rejo” (1) on the teacher’s desk.
A priest friend of mine once made a symbolic gesture. He asked to be given the “rejos” that he saw hanging on the walls of many houses he visited in a village in Chocó. On Christmas day, in the middle of a festive sharing in the square, he lit a small bonfire where he burned all the rejos, to the astonishment of the mothers and the rejoicing of the children.
Quibdó, the capital of Chocó, where the Sisters live, is a city where violence seems to have no end. Every day the news of the murder of a young person is received with pain. It has become so commonplace that it does not even make the news. The neighborhoods are dominated by criminal gangs that extort, rob and kill and create invisible borders that cannot be crossed without serious danger.
“We are convinced that our contribution to peace is through working with families.”
Children, who have experienced abandonment, loneliness and abuse, are easily captured by these groups who use them, first as “bell-ringers”, but soon find themselves in possession of a weapon that makes them feel big, capable of confronting a society that has denied them what they needed most: care, affection and tenderness.
For us, it is especially painful to see young people, whom we have known since they were children, fall into these networks of violence, often being their first victims. For this reason, we are convinced that our contribution to peace is to work with families, which are so often broken.
The work is slow, but little by little, we see mothers who understand that the belt is only for the waist and the rejo for the fire and that, on our knees, we must only be before God. They realize that they should not replicate with their children the way they were corrected and that it is essential to offer them the care, accompaniment and love they need to grow.
The motto of the Bishops’ Conference for Family Day is inspiring: “The family embrace is a contribution to peace”. That peace we need so much. Despite the signing of peace by the previous government with the strongest guerrilla, the FARC (2), and the hopeful public act of asking for forgiveness from this group to the survivors of the Bojayá massacre (3), there is still a strong presence of armed groups that sow violence, displacement and death in several departments.
“The Word of God gives us seeds of peace, which with hope we constantly sow.”
All our pastoral and educational actions are aimed at achieving peace in our environment by creating awareness against the prevailing strong machismo and against abuse. The insistence in the homilies of the priest, who is part of the team, seeks to achieve a family environment where children feel safe, valued and loved to prevent them from being the replacement for the delinquents that today plague the neighborhoods of the city. The promotion of sports, music and recreation seeks to create hobbies and interests that take children away from the “street school”. Soccer and music schools have been created to provide children and young people with effective motivation.
The Friendship Room that Daniela, the Italian missionary who shares our life, created years ago, offers the children a place of recreation and experience of values of respect, collaboration and joy. It also emphasizes replacing the street with an educational space. Likewise, the library seeks to cultivate and awaken children’s creativity. To open new horizons and help them to raise their self-esteem, overcoming their gaps and learning difficulties.
We promote a group of women who meet together to read the Word of God and illuminate their own family and social reality with it. They are, each one in her own sector, an example, always ready to help everyone. Steeped in the life and spirituality of Joaquina, they see in her a model of a resilient and free woman, a model wife and mother. The home visits, our familiar dealings with neighbors who share their joys and difficulties, create bonds of affection that awaken awareness and hope. The Eucharistic celebrations held in the farthest sectors of the neighborhood, often in the street, are an approach to distant neighbors who begin to participate, to help each other and to form community.
The Word of God, reflected on in the small community we accompany, the catechesis for children and young people, are seeds of peace, which, with hope, we sow constantly, knowing that we cannot look back to see them grow, but certain that the rain of Grace will not fail, which, without knowing how, will make them germinate to give thirty, fifty or a hundredfold .
Begoña Fernández, ccv
NOTES
1. Rejo: whip made of cowhide.
FARC: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), was the strongest guerrilla group that signed peace with the former president.
3. Bojayá: Municipality where a cylinder bomb thrown by the guerrillas caused the death of more than 90 people who had taken refuge in the town’s church.
The complete magazine, Dialogue and Encounter, Peace, the Fruit of Justice, can be downloaded by clicking on the following link, choosing the language of your choice:
The next issue, entitled Rumbo al Bicentenario, un recorrido por nuestros 200 años de historia, will be published in November 2025 .
