For the second consecutive year, the itinerant mission of the Scalabrinian Missionary Sisters has started on the island of Lesbos to help and support the thousands of refugees arriving from the Middle East and Africa who are seeking hope and salvation in Europe. Thanks to the collaboration with the Community Sant’Egidio, this initiative is possible and an agreement leading to the activation of a series of initiatives in Italy and the rest of the world. The Lesbos mission is one of these and has as protagonist the European Province St. Joseph. “The welcoming and the availability of the community Sant’Egidio are distinctive signs for us and are the possibility of a more articulated action for our service and to be in communion with migrants and refugees. Also, thanks to them we are able to set out towards the others – says Sister Neusa de Fatima Mariano, general superior of the Scalabrinian Sisters, a Congregation that since its foundation has as a mission the service to the migrant person – Thanks to them we will be there for the second consecutive year, offering assistance on this border area, where the request for help rises stronger. Throughout the summer, we will be with them, and we will extend a hand to families, mothers, fathers, and to the little ones”. This is an initiative that the Scalabrinian Missionary Sisters have promoted in the perspective of an “outgoing Church,” just as Pope Francis asked. The nine sisters will remain in Lesbos for a few months and will take turns in helping migrants in this border area on the Greek island opposite Turkey. The focus of their attention will be the Moria camp, a place where thousands of refugees live in degrading conditions that put their lives at risk. “This experience is a response to the Pontiff’s call to go to the human peripheries. In Moria, there is a continuous alarm to which we all must respond,” continues Sister Neusa. For Sister Milva Caro, provincial superior of Europe, “the emergency calls again all of us to mobilize to help the migrants who have never stopped crowding the Mediterranean routes.” It may no longer make the headlines, but thousands of people, women, and unaccompanied children, are still looking for a breach towards hope,” she adds. “Missionary activity is fundamental not only to respond to basic needs but also to give comfort, which is essential for those who have left everything behind and have often seen their dearest ones fall along the way.”
