Americo Domingos Nunes Filho

I was a stranger and you took me in... Christ teaches that salvation takes place through love in action

Christ was an example of love. He considered love in action towards our neighbor as one of the essential conditions to achieve happiness. In a known parable, Master Jesus refers to the elected ones, the ones that are saved, as those who, by loving their neighbor, they follow Him, and who do not refer to any religious belief, not even to His sacrifice on the Cross:
 

"... Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; For I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison and you were to see me.

Then the righteous answered Him, saying: Lord, when did we see You hungry, and fed You? Or when did we give You to drink when You were thirsty? And when did we see You a stranger and took You in? Or you were naked and we clothed You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visited You?

And, answering them, the King says: I say to you that when you did this to one of these my little brethren, you did it for me” (Matthew 25: 34-40).

It is imperative that the true Christian, sincere and active, whatever is his religious belief,  fights to master his lower tendencies, stops being so much concerned about himself, and begins to look at his neighbor and consider him as his brother, being sure that the Father loves him in the same way He loves all His children. In general, a human being, living in a set capitalist society of consumption, is always excessively involved in an overwhelming selfishness. 

Many infants are completely helpless

How comforting and wholesome it is to see a person gradually let go of the intense attraction that matter provides and start to look at his brother, who walks by him, in this reincarnation, and who is going through the difficult test or atonement stage, in one or more conditions identified by the loving Christ in the "Prophetic Sermon".

Following Christ’s teachings regarding taking in a stranger and accepting him in your heart, we recall the magnanimous attitude of adopting children. How it is important to open your arms and heart to these children with no dignified perspectives in life, with no decent education and lacking hygiene and health care.

A large number of infants are abandoned completely helpless in the streets, away from family environment, immersed in vices and delinquency.

One of the saddest days of my life was when I was driving through Rio de Janeiro and I saw children together on the sidewalks in the suburbs under the effects of crack, a type of free base cocaine, consumed through a pipe glass, which contains the drug in stone. By heating the device, a vapor or mist is produced, which is inhaled into the lungs and almost instantly goes to the bloodstream, and when it reaches the brain, it acts on dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in the responses of the body to pleasure. It harmfully affects the body, especially the heart, with a great possibility of a lethal outcome due to myocardial infarction. The drug addict can also have severe breathing problems and die due to disembodied by respiratory failure, and he can also suffer a stroke caused by a sudden high blood pressure, besides serious mental and gastrointestinal problems. 

The abandoned children need protection

It is also very discouraging to see on the streets, young offenders, in gangs of thieves, robbing, using extreme violence, reaching the point of hurting and killing their victims. All this is a result of a weak social justice, especially preventing access to culture, health and to a decent life. Priority is given to severe criminal laws, trying to treat the effect, but fundamentally ignoring the causes of violence. It is easier and easier to jail than to act prophylactically. Instead of previously preparing the individual to be good, through education, it is easier to arrest him, and remove him from the society. This procedure gives him the chance to become worse, attending a school of crime together with the others who are also in prison.

Betinho, the late sociologist, said openly: "If I do not see a child in a child, it is because someone committed violence against it; and what I see is what's left of all that was taken away from it." In fact, there are just rulers concerned with people's welfare, making efforts so that the poorest have access to the basic minimum for survival, especially a house, education and a good quality health care.

Abandoned children urgently need to be reintegrated into their homes or settled in foster families temporarily or definitively, in compliance to Christ's admonition that asks us to shelter the stranger, in the privacy of our home and heart, through the adoption of a child.

The adoption of a needy child is a great act

The great act of providing a family to a child deprived of home is an example of the most sublime and enormous love of neighbor, an essentially evangelical act of high moral and spiritual nature. How it would be important if the Spiritists, as architects of the presence of the Comforter promised by Jesus, encouraged and practiced the act of adoption, mainly knowing how the blessed process of “being born again” is important and essential, when the one who reincarnates acquires valuable opportunities of growing spiritually, reaching forward and developing spiritual progress.  

The Benefactors of the Extra-physical Dimension, recalling the use of the childhood period in the spiritual development of the human being, report that "the Spirits only enter into corporeal life to improve themselves, for their betterment. The delicacy of a child’s age makes them soft, accessible to advice from experience and that should make them progress. At this stage is when one can form their character and repress evil inclinations. Such is the duty that God imposed on parents, a sacred trust for which they must give account”. "So therefore, childhood is not only useful, but it is necessary, indispensable, and also a natural consequence of the laws that God established and that govern the Universe." (Issue 385 of "The Book of Spirits").

It is important to highlight that the Spirits that are still unenlightened have the opportunity to reeducate themselves spiritually, when they reincarnate in worlds of tests and atonement, such as the Earth. During their childhood they receive much care, attention, and love, as well as good examples from those responsible for teaching them. It is the first decade of their bodily life and it is important so that they can gain some spiritual progress, especially the reform of the character, and the repression of evil tendencies, of a bad character. 

It is important to give the child an effective assistance

When the imperfect beings pass through childhood without the opportunity of studying and with no love whatsoever, they become aggressive and harsh and then show their imperfections and easily walk the path into drugs and crime. Unfortunately, because they have not received the necessary support, love and brotherhood, they require the action of an effective childcare system. As it does happen, they end up by being imprisoned. However, the prison system does not fulfill its important role of reintegration and rehabilitation of young offenders, thus preventing the reintegration of these young people in society.

The Doctrine teaches that the unenlightened beings reincarnate harboring bad tendencies, and may even become architects of violence. It is imperative therefore that they receive in childhood an effective educational assistance at home, as well as the fundamental rights of a dignified life, which, when denied, makes easier the outbreak of cruelty and involvement in crime.

The Doctrine is essentially educational and aims mainly to the evolution of man, educating him, so that in this blessed school that is Earth, he can gradually put into practice all the potential given to him by his Beloved Father, at the moment of his cosmic education.

Therefore, it is essential that the Spiritist always keeps in mind his firm and iron will to help and assist the children abandoned on the streets, orphans with living or disembodied parents, so that they have the opportunity of having a home where they can benefit from the good qualities, firm and coherent attitudes, and be prepared to face the battles of life with self-assurance. 

Jesus says: Salvation takes place through love in action

How would it be important if all children received the teachings of the Gospel and were taught to follow the practice of brotherhood, seeking to destroy selfishness, which causes all the evils and social injustice!

May the Master Jesus sustain and enlighten all who dedicate themselves to the education of the children, in schools or in their own homes, contributing for the spiritual improvement of brothers still located in lower evolutionary tracks.

Christ has said that salvation takes place through love in action, telling the so-called elected: "... I was a stranger and you took Me in ..." (Matthew 25:35).

May the homeless children be sheltered in our heart, receiving a dignified education, because by doing so love is, in fact, being fertilized and providing these brothers, eternity wayfarers, in a transitional phase of obscurity, with a favorable occasion for them to, as quick as possible and in total freedom, see the stars of the infinite Universe, praising the immortality flight in happiness before the Infinite.

Americo Domingos Nunes Filho is a physician in the city of Rio de Janeiro.