It has been said that when something belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one; and that this reality only generates the loss or deterioration of any good. An American student who spent a season in Lima, living in a university residence, was struck by how well cared for the house was. Unlike what he had experienced in a residence in Los Angeles, where the kitchen sink ended up more and more full of dirty dishes every day, which all the resident university students left unwashed. And what he found in this house in Lima was a care and cleanliness to which everyone who lived there contributed.
This anecdote aims to show two facts: first, that neglect of the common occurs everywhere on the planet; and second, that in our country there are environments where the common is cared for; and that therefore, it is not a dream to think that as a society we can take much better care of the common goods.
The common goods are those that build and make pleasant coexistence possible. Human beings are called to live together, but not by contract, as Rousseau thought; rather, because man is a personal being. Being a person means being interior and at the same time being for others. For this reason – and it is also something that we can all discover in our own lives – rather than asking ourselves Who am I?, the question that one should ask, as Rosini suggests, is Who am I for?
Since the social is a characteristic of our nature, we must manage coexistence in society as an important component of our personality; that is, as a task to which we contribute and a space that we enjoy. Regrettably, in our time, individualism has been imposed as a standard of life by economic theories or ideologies poorly conceived as social. But, it was not always like this in the history of humanity. Messori, in one of his books, comments that the moment in history when the sick, widows, orphans and the poor had the best time was the Middle Ages. A period in history where there was no State, but rather many social initiatives that arose from the concern of specific individuals, who, motivated by their love for the Lord, decided to dedicate part or all of their time – their life – to alleviating the problems of those who suffered or did not have access to concrete well-being. And as Messori adds: these people behaved in this way because that period of history was characterized by the great love of God that existed in those societies.
This fact only confirms the personal reality of the human being. Someone with interiority – with the capacity to reflect and decide for themselves what they dedicate their time to – and a being who at the same time goes out of themselves to act by resolving the evils that afflict other human beings, especially the weakest.
Therefore, our contribution to the common good cannot be far from the spiritual quality that each one has, because the movement of going out of oneself requires an inner richness: a reflection on one’s own reason for being, on the resources that one has and the capacities that one possesses, and all this, opening our eyes to the problems and needs of others. A whole interior sensitivity that can only come from the authentic source of all good: God himself. If today we see that the common good is undervalued, it is partly because our spirituality has been impoverished.
Therefore, in the construction of the common good, rather than thinking about other social structures or looking for people who will fix everything with power in their hands, what we should consider is to work more on the quality of our own spirituality. In this way, we will discover the enormously rich reality that we lose when we do not open the doors of our interiority to friendship with the Lord.
And then, our contribution to the common good will not be a heavy burden; an external obligation imposed by an authority – often questioned for its behavior – but an action that comes from our own conviction, and from the activity of a being who enjoys more and more when he shares. And we will take care with joy, not to dirty the streets, not to damage the neighbor’s walls, not to disturb abruptly with the horn, not to want to be the first in traffic; and better yet, we will join with enthusiasm and excitement many of our own or other people’s initiatives that help make life in common more pleasant.
