History 6: Listening to Others in order to heal Them. "Family Counselors for the Family"
«What is usually missing is the time to listen, so that a family can feel understood in the midst difficulties that arise at various stages of its life. Now, who, better than a family, can understand another family?» This finding in part is fundamental for the story of “Family Counselors for the Family,” according to Alfredo, one of the two directors of the Pastoral Council of the Diocese of San Martin, located in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Here, in 1993, Mons. Luis Héctor Villalba, the direct predecessor the present Bishop, realizing the necessity to support local families in need, called together the representatives of different ecclesial movements (including Schoenstatt, Focolare and Christian Marriage Encounter) to determine the right action for supporting and promoting the family cell. This meeting and those that followed finally led to greater awareness of the service that can be rendered to suffering families by the charisma, which couples of each movement embody, through gratuitous listening and love, without bias, that foretells, if only by virtue of the method, how the problems can be overcome.
Attentive listening can also often give the families who ask for help the strength necessary to find, within their own relationship, the right answer to the problems that afflict them: «Our experience—Hector, an agent of the diocesan family ministry, says—showed that the solution is often found by the couple itself. This is one of the extraordinary effects of unbiased, fraternal listening that welcomes others while recognizing their difference. You do not say, in fact, what needs to be done, but the personal love that these couples sense inspires them with the answer and the best effort they can make to put the solution into practice».
Up to now over 3 thousand families have been helped, and they confirm the value of the formula that is the basis of the meetings organized by the Counselors for the Family: two couples of “guiding spouses,” who have the task of interacting with the couple and its problems, while preserving, thanks to the two different points of view, the objectivity required to engage in fruitful paths of reconciliation. All this takes place once a week, for no more than 50 minutes. The “guides” also receive training through a fourteen-week seminar, during which they study topics such as law, morality, psychology and techniques of family mediation. The course then ends with an internship, where the skills acquired in the field are tested.
Category: Proximity to families in need Realm of experience: Secretariado Nacional de Pastoral Familiar Country: Argentina Contact: (Hector and Rosana Amor): Phone +54 1147683277 E-mail: hamor@loipon.com.ar; rosanacappe@yahoo.com.ar Contact: (Alfredo and Alicia Mucchiut): Phone +54 1147375209 E-mail: mucchiut@hotmail.com