What Have We Venezuelans Learned?

In this last decade, millions of us Venezuelans who live in this country have learned many important things: • We have learned the meaning of the word Homeland and, above all, love of our homeland. • We have learned to be patient (which is not the same as “getting used to it” or resignation), while we carry on with the fight without stopping, with our feet firmly on the ground, seeing not just one side of reality but the whole of it. • We have learned that everything has its time. That the mistakes made in the past have had serious consequences, and that it is very hard to make things change overnight. • We have learned that what can do the most harm to our hearts is hatred, and that the best thing we can do to keep from filling up with that poison is to pray for those we don’t like. • We have learned that we have young people unlike any in the world, who have suffered and matured a great deal; who are brilliant, creative, communicative and generous; and who are taking part in society as never before in our history. A youth with many dreams, hopes and the will to keep going. • We have learned that if we give up or “throw in the towel,” those young people might do the same. • We have learned that we have many brothers and sisters “in spirit”

and “in homeland” in every corner of Venezuela and of the whole world. Brothers and sisters who rejoice in our joys, who suffer with our pain, who accompany us with prayer and with their own efforts, and who give us encouragement. To all of you: Thank you so much! • We have learned to get back on our feet quickly after our losses and our grief. We don’t give much room to depression, because there is so much work to do here that we can’t afford that luxury. • We have learned to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, and so we understand the decisions of those who don’t think as we do.

And we have understood that “solidarity, as a fundamental attitude, implies in economic decisions feeling the poverty of others as one’s own, making the misery of the marginalized one’s own flesh and, in view of this, acting with rigorous consistency. It is not merely a matter of professing good intentions, but also of a firm will to seek effective solutions at the technical level of the economy, with the clear-sightedness that love gives and the creativity that springs from solidarity” (John Paul II, L’Osservatore Romano, April 12, 1987). • We have learned that the essential priority in this country is called Education in Values. • We have learned what it means to kneel, not before a man or before money, but before God, because we humbly know that without His help we can do nothing. • We have learned to be people of peace and to resolve our differences peacefully, despite the hatred some have tried to sow and the forecasts of those who announced blah, blah, blah. And as never before, so many Venezuelans, in every corner of the country and of the world, have prayed, and still pray every day, for peace in our nation. Thanks to those prayers, God and the Virgin have protected us (and always will) from a so-called “war” between brothers. • We have learned that there are many of us ready to keep praying, fighting and sowing without rest, knowing that we may not see the fruit of our efforts here on earth. • We have learned that we must strive to be better people every day, and that things must be done cleanly, honestly, and in the sight of men and of God; because otherwise, sooner or later, we pay the consequences. • We have learned that there is nothing greater in the world than fighting for what you love. That it doesn’t matter if we sacrifice our “quality of life,” or even our own lives. That it doesn’t matter if we live for many years without rest, or until we are in our graves. That the satisfaction of fighting for the future of our homeland’s children and grandchildren is Priceless! • We have learned that it is up to us to encourage and support so many children and young people who dream of a better country than the one the previous generations left them. And since we are part of that previous generation, which failed to do many necessary things at the time, we have a great commitment to keep working to the end, “squeezing ourselves dry like a lemon.”

And most important of all, we have learned to have great faith and great hope: the hope that gives us the patience and fortitude we need to keep going, supported by a great deal of prayer and a great deal of work.

And we will enjoy, joyful and united, the hard fight that will lead us to discover in all its splendor what this nation can become: the example of a united country that prayed and fought, without rest, to bring progress, peace and justice to everyone who lives in our beloved homeland, Venezuela!