On charity and compassion
BETWEEN COMPASSION AND CHARITY
We’ve decided to talk today about compassion and charity, because people seem to open up their hearts and their pockets easier on the eve of holidays. We wanted to see what makes people be more generous only on the occasion of various holy days. We started our trip in Alba county, western Romania, where on April the 1st the Christian Churches Association launched a fund raising campaign for poor families, entitled ‘A happy Easter in every family’, which is to take place in the town of Alba Iulia and other important towns in the county. In most supermarkets in these towns special boxes have been placed to collect money and posters have been put up, urging people to give money for charity; the amount of money is not important as long as it comes from the heart. Another 19 groups of young people go from door to door to each company in the county to collect funds offering in exchange advertising space on local radio and television stations. Gabriel Albu, one of the organizers, will tell us more about the destination of the money raised:
‘We intend to help 250-300 families in Alba county. This is not our first attempt, we organized such a campaign for children last Christmas, when we collected 250 packs with sweets, food and toys. We managed then, as we do now, to sensitize decent people. In some cases we faced refusals, some other people didn’t even want to listen to us, but most of them were open to these actions.’
The streets of Bucharest offer just as many opportunities for charitable acts. There are young people who sell Easter cards, assuring you that the money will go to an orphanage, there are monks who put your name down in a notebook if you give them money for the building of I don’t know what monastery. There are also beggars, each in their own corner, on the territory controlled by a chief-beggar who also collects protection taxes from the regular beggars. So, there are plenty of opportunities to show your mercy. But what is the difference between a charitable act on the occasion of certain holidays and a hand held out to the poor on an ordinary day ? We got our answer from Gabriel Albu:
“A charitable foundation knows the destination of the money, investigates cases beforehand, and manages the funds in the best possible way. The charitable act of giving alms occurs more in front of the church. This act will become a permanent one, but will occur only on Christmas and Easter. What would happen if we were to knock on companies’ doors ten times a year? It would be quite difficult. So we thought twice a year was enough.”
What happens though to those who cannot possibly hold out a trembling hand? We went to Nursing home no. 2 in Bucharest and talked to doctor Cristina China, director of the home. There are 114 chronically ill patients from aged 35 to 89. Most of them are totally dependent on nursing home staff. We asked Cristina China how generous she considers Romanians to be when it comes to people in difficulty.
BANDA: “I think that for the past 30 years the generosity of the Romanian people has seriously diminished; the difficulties each of us had to face have made us become more selfish. Maybe after 1990 when religion became a stronger presence in our lives, we started to remember what it was like to be generous but the same difficulties are preventing us today from carrying out our good intentions. Maybe that is why we are trying, at least on holidays, to be generous. I happened to go to several companies to ask for sponsorship and I received a positive answer, which unfortunately never materialized. I was told “no” only once and I was advised to ask for sponsorship at the beginning of the year when the budget for sponsorships is set. This is what tradition has taught us: to be better and more generous on the occasion of holidays…Willy- nilly, on holidays, even if we forget to be generous, there are other people who will surely remind us to be charitable, humane and selfless…”
Many of Cristina China’s patients are bedridden. Isolation is the main difficulty they have to cope with. Apart from medicines and vitamins, they need attention which will surely alleviate their pain.
“You can feel pity for a murderer as well , but charity is more than pity, as it comes from a different part of the soul. Out of mercy, you can offer somebody 10,000 lei….or anything you have, an old coat for instance…but charity is something different, it’s a feeling of benevolence. You help the needy not only materially, but also spiritually, in an attempt to boost their morale as well. For instance, you can cover some of their transport expenses, you can pay a car to take them to Herastrau park. The driver will leave them in the park for a couple of hours, to take walk , to breathe the fresh air, to stay in a serener atmosphere, and then he will carry them back….A pensioners’ association rented a coach for some old people who were taken to the mountain resort of Predeal. We offered them take-away food and some money to spend there. We also gave money to the nurses who accompanied them, to buy them juice, ice-cream or whatever they wanted. They had a wonderful time in Predeal. Last year, the National Theatre invited them to a performance, this year the Masca Theatre company invited them to another show- also covering the transport expenses and the tickets. The old people found a small parcel on their seats upon their return. I don’t know what they liked most, the parcel or the show, but they were really happy.”
In the end of our feature we will take you to a unique place in the contemporary urban life: The St Elijah Church in Titan district in Bucharest. It is a wooden church built near a modern hyper-market. Ilie Costescu, the parish-priest understood that the district needed a church to stay open 24 hours a day, for those believers who don’t have time to pray and light a candle during the day. The money collected in the so-called “ charity box” , placed near the entrance of the church, is used to prepare meals for the poor, once a week. The district is inhabited by workers and pensioners who once worked in big factories. Father Costescu’s parishioners are not rich but they are very generous through:
”There are many pensioners, many people living in one-room-apartments…When they receive their pensions, the old people start making calculations: how much they need to pay their debts and what is left for the Charity box… unfortunately sometimes nothing is left but they still find some money to put in the box, while the rich don’t come to church too often…In my opinion, everybody should be charitable, but only those with religious feelings can have compassion for the needy. Even our Lord Jesus Christ said: I don’t want sacrifice, I want compassion .”
Well, Easter has passed. Let us not forget that Easter and Christmas are separated by long months, when the underprivileged need the attention and the support of those who are happier than them. Small gestures, coming from one’s soul, on a common day, are very important.
We’ve decided to talk today about compassion and charity, because people seem to open up their hearts and their pockets easier on the eve of holidays. We wanted to see what makes people be more generous only on the occasion of various holy days. We started our trip in Alba county, western Romania, where on April the 1st the Christian Churches Association launched a fund raising campaign for poor families, entitled ‘A happy Easter in every family’, which is to take place in the town of Alba Iulia and other important towns in the county. In most supermarkets in these towns special boxes have been placed to collect money and posters have been put up, urging people to give money for charity; the amount of money is not important as long as it comes from the heart. Another 19 groups of young people go from door to door to each company in the county to collect funds offering in exchange advertising space on local radio and television stations. Gabriel Albu, one of the organizers, will tell us more about the destination of the money raised:
‘We intend to help 250-300 families in Alba county. This is not our first attempt, we organized such a campaign for children last Christmas, when we collected 250 packs with sweets, food and toys. We managed then, as we do now, to sensitize decent people. In some cases we faced refusals, some other people didn’t even want to listen to us, but most of them were open to these actions.’
The streets of Bucharest offer just as many opportunities for charitable acts. There are young people who sell Easter cards, assuring you that the money will go to an orphanage, there are monks who put your name down in a notebook if you give them money for the building of I don’t know what monastery. There are also beggars, each in their own corner, on the territory controlled by a chief-beggar who also collects protection taxes from the regular beggars. So, there are plenty of opportunities to show your mercy. But what is the difference between a charitable act on the occasion of certain holidays and a hand held out to the poor on an ordinary day ? We got our answer from Gabriel Albu:
“A charitable foundation knows the destination of the money, investigates cases beforehand, and manages the funds in the best possible way. The charitable act of giving alms occurs more in front of the church. This act will become a permanent one, but will occur only on Christmas and Easter. What would happen if we were to knock on companies’ doors ten times a year? It would be quite difficult. So we thought twice a year was enough.”
What happens though to those who cannot possibly hold out a trembling hand? We went to Nursing home no. 2 in Bucharest and talked to doctor Cristina China, director of the home. There are 114 chronically ill patients from aged 35 to 89. Most of them are totally dependent on nursing home staff. We asked Cristina China how generous she considers Romanians to be when it comes to people in difficulty.
BANDA: “I think that for the past 30 years the generosity of the Romanian people has seriously diminished; the difficulties each of us had to face have made us become more selfish. Maybe after 1990 when religion became a stronger presence in our lives, we started to remember what it was like to be generous but the same difficulties are preventing us today from carrying out our good intentions. Maybe that is why we are trying, at least on holidays, to be generous. I happened to go to several companies to ask for sponsorship and I received a positive answer, which unfortunately never materialized. I was told “no” only once and I was advised to ask for sponsorship at the beginning of the year when the budget for sponsorships is set. This is what tradition has taught us: to be better and more generous on the occasion of holidays…Willy- nilly, on holidays, even if we forget to be generous, there are other people who will surely remind us to be charitable, humane and selfless…”
Many of Cristina China’s patients are bedridden. Isolation is the main difficulty they have to cope with. Apart from medicines and vitamins, they need attention which will surely alleviate their pain.
“You can feel pity for a murderer as well , but charity is more than pity, as it comes from a different part of the soul. Out of mercy, you can offer somebody 10,000 lei….or anything you have, an old coat for instance…but charity is something different, it’s a feeling of benevolence. You help the needy not only materially, but also spiritually, in an attempt to boost their morale as well. For instance, you can cover some of their transport expenses, you can pay a car to take them to Herastrau park. The driver will leave them in the park for a couple of hours, to take walk , to breathe the fresh air, to stay in a serener atmosphere, and then he will carry them back….A pensioners’ association rented a coach for some old people who were taken to the mountain resort of Predeal. We offered them take-away food and some money to spend there. We also gave money to the nurses who accompanied them, to buy them juice, ice-cream or whatever they wanted. They had a wonderful time in Predeal. Last year, the National Theatre invited them to a performance, this year the Masca Theatre company invited them to another show- also covering the transport expenses and the tickets. The old people found a small parcel on their seats upon their return. I don’t know what they liked most, the parcel or the show, but they were really happy.”
In the end of our feature we will take you to a unique place in the contemporary urban life: The St Elijah Church in Titan district in Bucharest. It is a wooden church built near a modern hyper-market. Ilie Costescu, the parish-priest understood that the district needed a church to stay open 24 hours a day, for those believers who don’t have time to pray and light a candle during the day. The money collected in the so-called “ charity box” , placed near the entrance of the church, is used to prepare meals for the poor, once a week. The district is inhabited by workers and pensioners who once worked in big factories. Father Costescu’s parishioners are not rich but they are very generous through:
”There are many pensioners, many people living in one-room-apartments…When they receive their pensions, the old people start making calculations: how much they need to pay their debts and what is left for the Charity box… unfortunately sometimes nothing is left but they still find some money to put in the box, while the rich don’t come to church too often…In my opinion, everybody should be charitable, but only those with religious feelings can have compassion for the needy. Even our Lord Jesus Christ said: I don’t want sacrifice, I want compassion .”
Well, Easter has passed. Let us not forget that Easter and Christmas are separated by long months, when the underprivileged need the attention and the support of those who are happier than them. Small gestures, coming from one’s soul, on a common day, are very important.
posted by Andreea Demirgian at
4:12 AM
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