Maria Grazia is an Italian woman who lives in the outskirts of Catania, in Sicily.
When she sees the African refugees in her area, she is full of pity for them and says that she would like, if it were possible, to take them home to give them food and shelter.
Given the numbers involved, she cannot do it. However, Maria Grazia is a woman with a big heart and, together with some volunteers, she organises a soup kitchen every week.
She receives donations of pasta, sauce and cheese from friends, shops and others and prepares 30 kilos of Italian pasta for about 300 refugees.
Her husband, Antonio, who is a carpenter, is not allowed in the kitchen, however, he has to prepare 300 sandwiches. The atmosphere in the clean kitchen is happy and boisterous.
The plump Maria Grazia takes charge, giving loud directions to the helpers to the accompaniment of the clanging sound of plates and utensils – music to the ears of the refugees waiting outside the doors.
When the meal is ready, the helpers in their uniform of red tops and white aprons open the doors to the refugees. All is well except when the number of refugees exceeds that expected. For a moment, there is panic in the kitchen as there might not be enough food to go round.
The team would not push back even one refugee but, somehow, extra food is found and hurriedly prepared so that no one leaves the kitchen hungry.
Maria Grazia does not ask where the refugees came from or how they finished up in her area. She considers them as her sons and brothers.
Maria Grazia’s soup kitchen initiative in Sicily reminds me very much of what Don Quixote told Sancho Panza: “You blockhead. It is not the responsibility of knights errant to discover whether the afflicted, the enchained and the oppressed who they encounter on the road are reduced to these circumstances and suffer their distress for their vices or for their virtues; the knight’s sole responsibility is to succour them as people in need, having eyes only for their sufferings, not for their misdeeds. I came across a rosary of angry, wretched men. I did with them what my religion requires of me and nothing else is any concern of mine.”
Now is there a lesson here for some of us?