When the news stopped being just numbers
There are pains that are also felt thousands of kilometres away. While some ran toward the rubble, others stayed in front of a screen waiting for a message that simply said: “we’re fine”.
Distance has a silent way of hurting. It forces you to keep working, replying to messages, going about everyday life, while your heart remains elsewhere. But even from afar, something unexpected happened: there were people who decided not to remain still.
Some travelled to help. Others organised donations. Others listened, prayed, accompanied. Because when suffering has a name, indifference is no longer an option.
That is what Simón Morales experienced, who decided to travel to La Guaira when he realised that it was no longer enough to keep watching the news.
“The news stopped being just numbers and started to have familiar faces. That’s when I understood that information was no longer going to change anything, but action would.”
When he arrived, he found a devastating reality: families waiting for news, rescuers working without rest, volunteers trying to bring some order amid the chaos. There, pain stopped being a distant image and became a real face.
Among those faces, Simón especially remembers a 76-year-old woman, diabetic and hypertensive, whom he helped stabilise. Even in her own fragility, she had supported her neighbours in the courtyard of her home. Her testimony left him with a certainty that is hard to forget: life is fragile and does not always grant time to postpone what is essential.
“There is no certain tomorrow. Let us stop postponing life and enjoyment for a tomorrow.”
Hope also gets organised
In the midst of the emergency, solidarity did not appear only as a spontaneous impulse. It also took organised form through institutions, communities and volunteers who put their hands at the service of those who needed it most.
For Kevin Quiroz, an ARCORES volunteer, serving in this context was a concrete way to make the Augustinian Recollect charism visible.
“Serving through ARCORES has been the clear proof of our motto: moving hearts and transforming lives.”
His experience allowed him to recognise that, even amid devastation, the Venezuelan people continue to show a profound capacity for resilience, empathy and mutual aid.
“Each person, in every corner of the country, reminds me that God is present: many people taking action, helping, serving, without distinctions.”
From faith, service takes on a different depth. It is not only about doing good or responding to a humanitarian emergency. For Kevin, serving in these days has been a way of becoming like Christ, of being light in the midst of darkness.
“It is not done out of mere altruism, but out of the fact of being like Jesus Christ.”
Steven Mero, a young man connected to the Agustinian School Cristo Rey, also felt the need to get involved. His decision was born of the education received at home and the values learned in Augustinian formation: to help, respect, love and value life.
When he arrived in the affected areas, he expected to find only desolation. But he found something more.
“I thought I was going to find discouraged people, fallen hopes and dreams, a city in ruins… but it was the complete opposite. In people’s eyes you could see faith, love of neighbour and the courage to keep going.”
The experience was not easy. Steven acknowledges that the hardest part was coming out of the state of shock so he could help without getting in the way, offer a fraternal hand, and provide emotional support to those who were most affected.
“You need to be brave enough to help and not get in the way.”
In the midst of everything, he discovered that God was not absent.
“God was with all of us. God has never abandoned us, neither before nor after the earthquake.”
Being there, listening, loving
When a person has lost almost everything, they do not need explanations first. They need humanity.
This is how Rosa Parisi, a laywoman from the Parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, expresses it. From her experience of accompaniment, she affirms that the most urgent thing is to help restore dignity: hygiene, cleanliness, rest, safety and companionship.
“A person needs to know they are being accompanied, to know they will not face this alone.”
The Church, in the face of suffering that is hard to explain, is not called to give quick answers or empty speeches. It is called to remain.
“We must not give advice; we must listen and love. Simply be there.”
Rosa has seen hope appear in collection centres, in hospitals, in patients and companions who still have words of gratitude to God, and especially in those who, even having lost everything, threw themselves into helping others.
Also in the rescuers, whom she defines with a simple and forceful phrase:
“They are everything.”
Perhaps one of the strongest lessons of this tragedy for the Christian community is precisely this: it is not enough to remain within the four walls of the temple. Faith is verified when it goes out, when it gives of itself, when it puts gifts and talents at the service of others.
From Spain, distance does not protect from pain. There are tragedies that cross oceans. That force us to ask whether it is enough to watch, share a post or wait for news. The stories of Simón, Kevin, Steven and Rosa do not speak only of those who were there. They also speak of all those who, in one way or another, felt that another’s suffering could no longer be чужд.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of these days is not only in the lives rescued or the aid delivered. Perhaps it is also in the hearts that awakened.
Some brought food. Others medicine. Others listened. Others prayed. Others simply stayed.
And, in doing so, they remembered something the Gospel has never stopped saying: love always finds a way to be present.
Because after the earthquake, something else also began to move.
Not only the earth.
Also hearts.
