FOR many of us, 2020 was a year we spent away from home.
By home, we do not mean just our houses. Home is a place where we feel cared for and loved, and where we are free to express our true selves and be greeted with respect and dignity. It is a place where we render service to our loved ones and partake in the duties and activities that keep such a home liveable. One way or another, 2020 has made most of us feel not at home, be it physically or emotionally. In fact, in many ways, 2020 has been a year of separation.
Throughout the year, many of us had one way or another felt unwelcome. Many of those who had to work during the pandemic - especially frontliners - were discriminated against despite the service they provide for their families and communities. Many workers lost their jobs in workplaces they treated as their second home for many years. Many households were shocked to find that they were ineligible for financial and social assistance in communities they called their own. Many Filipinos felt excluded from their country as they were denied the basic rights of citizens to life, liberty, and due process.
From our families to our neighborhoods to our country, we expected a certain amount of respect, belongingness, and security. That is why it is heartbreaking to find how many of these expectations were not met during the pandemic, on top of many other crises we faced throughout the year 2020.
This is why Pope Francis’s message for the celebration of the 54th World Day of Peace this January 1st could not be more relevant. His message is simple: for us to establish a culture of care as a path to peace. In his message, the Pope described the principles of this culture of care as adherence to the Church’s social doctrine: commitment to promoting the dignity of each human person, solidarity with the poor and vulnerable, the pursuit of the common good, and concern for the protection of creation.
While they may seem to be big words, there is a place that perfectly illustrates how these principles are in practice: our homes. More than being a shelter or a shared living space, home is a place where we feel safe and respected; where we can both show and receive care; where we can find people with whom we can work together; and where we can cultivate and experience harmony with our environment. When our Holy Father is calling us to establish “a culture of care”, in a way he is saying that we should work for our households, our communities, and our country to be “home” to those who have lost their way, to those with whom we were separated, and those whom we have wrongfully cast aside.
The year 2020 had undoubtedly caused and emphasized many physical and metaphorical divisions among society. Even the closest among us still had to observe at least six feet of distance, and that is nothing compared to the wide valley separating many of us in terms of our political beliefs and persuasions. But to actively seek to build our country as a “home” means to treat each other with respect, empathy, and grace. This is difficult if instead of meaningful conversation, we instead reduce each other to letters and tag each other with colors.
While our positions in politics are a reflection of our values and our adherence to our professed beliefs, building a society of justice and peace is creating an environment where both accountability and mercy is possible. There is room for punishment in the home, but violence is not its primary purpose. In the Pope’s emphatic words, “We need to stop and ask ourselves what has led our world to see conflict as something normal, and how our hearts can be converted and our ways of thinking changed, in order to work for true peace in solidarity and fraternity.”
In our homes, we all experience disagreements from time to time, but this does not hinder us from dining with one another, protecting one another from danger, and caring for each other’s sickness. At home, we do not address each other by title or treat each other differently because of how much money we make: we treat each other as parents and children, or as siblings. And while we are at home, we partake in caring and maintaining the cleanliness and healthiness of that place, recognizing that our home belongs to everyone, and each person must be able to enjoy it and take part in it. Simply put, home is a place for caring for each other by carrying one another.
Establishing a culture of care is simply applying these values in greater society. In doing so, we can counteract the negative effects of terror and impunity, which are so prevalent in our country today. Care - kindness and respect for each other - is our vaccine against indifference and conflict. These are antibodies that already exist within us, and they spread quicker than any virus. Unlike some vaccines, care is free of charge and is already available. But like all vaccines, it only works if we apply it to everyone. Not just a privileged few.
Since 2020 has brought us wounds of division and separation, our prayer should be for the year 2021 to be a year of reconciliation and peace. Yet, in the words of our Holy Father, “There can be no peace without a culture of care.” Care is the bridge towards which we can go from conflict to peace. But care is also the act of carrying each other’s burdens and differences, just as Christ has carried us to reconciliation with God.
Can our resolution for this year then be to care more for our neighbors, especially those with whom we disagree? To forgive and welcome home those we have shut out of our lives? To share our blessings with the poorest among us, and to welcome society’s outcasts back into our midst? To protect, conserve and treat more kindly our fellow creatures with which we share our common home? And finally, to spread this attitude of care and empathy in our community and throughout the country?