Hands that do not give, what they expect?"

This expression, attributed to Santa Teresa, is now a reason for deep reflection, when we turn the gaze to refugees and migrant children, and their parents ... The gap between the most advanced and the most needy countries has been widened due to non-fulfillment of the agreements reached on integrated and endogenous development, causing high-risk situations for international stability, with a serious deterioration of social, natural, cultural and ethical balances,  accumulating wealth in one side, less and less, and misery and marginalization growing on the other side.

As Luis Bedés wrote, "The failures that affect us, the problems betrayed as hunger and poverty, terrorism and violence, inequality and injustice, show the weakness of the established order. The inefficiencies of the international order evidence the internal ones of nations and of human beings. "We cannot rest until public health reaches every corner, that all human beings, whatever their language, creed or color are, can live together. We must work tirelessly without asking anything in return. "Volunteering is still universal vocation".

Solidarity is giving and to be devoted to others. It is living and feeling the joy of giving. As Gibran Khalil Gibran has written in "The Prophet", a permanent source of inspiration, "You only really give when you give something of yourself ... It is good to give when you are requested to, but it is better to give before ... Everything you have will be given one day ... Give now, that the channel of gift be yours and not of your inheritors.

Often you say, "I would give, but only to those who deserve it."  The trees of your garden do not speak out like this.... They give in order to live, because saving is dying ... Is there merit greater than that of giving courage and confidence to receive?  -not the charity-... Look first if you deserve ...”.

What can be expected from the hands that do not give?"

Sometimes, given to the magnitude of needs and precariousness of means, we feel stressed and are overwhelmed by the temptation of giving up. Then we have to remember the quiet voice of another Mother Teresa, the Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who left us the unforgettable message of her superb example: "Yes: you are like a drop in the ocean. But if the drop was not there, the ocean would be missing it”.

In order that European Union no longer be just a monetary organization and complete its transformation into a genuine political and economic union, must open wide enough doors and windows, so closed today and some also turned into mirrors. It must build bridges of solidarity to overcome the barriers that separate themselves from their neighbors. This is the great role that Europe can play: the lighthouse, the cornerstone of democracy values, of universal principles so necessary and urgent -in social, environmental, cultural and moral aspects- in these somber beginnings of century and millennium.

What can be expected from the hands that do not give?"

I like to repeat, due to its immense depth, the phrase that impressed me so many years ago, when I read it in a small chapel near Montpellier: "The shrouds have no pockets." To those who today have so much wealth, do not forget it.