Two by Two

Two by two Two by Two

Kristina Cooper finds out about the “Two by Two” experience of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, by which they are sent out in pairs with nothing but a bible to preach the gospel and live on Divine Providence, so they learn to grow in Faith.

He summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them. Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere. (Luke 9:1-6)

St Francis of Assisi caused a scandal in his time by taking these words literally and urging his followers to take nothing with them as they went to spread the good news. In more modern days, the Neo Catechumenal Way, initiated by Kiko Arguello and Carmen Hernandez 40 years ago in a Madrid slum, has developed a similar practice called “Two by Two”. Through this its catechists are sent for 10 day missions every so often, literally with nothing and sometimes not even being able to speak the language, so they too can experience through their poverty, the mystery of the foolishness and power of the gospel message. Fr Tony Sacre, parish priest in the East End of London, now in his 70s, had a “Two by Two” experience 20 years ago. He still remembers it. “There were over a thousand of us and we were sent out two by two all over the world. I was sent to the Bronx.”

He continues, “There were eight of us altogether who were sent to New York. When we arrived we went to St Patrick’s Cathedral to introduce ourselves and see if it was possible to meet the bishop and tell him what we were intending to do. We received an appointment for the next day, but there was no question of hospitality, so the eight of us decided to go and sleep in Central Park. I remember Fr Carmelo, one of the group, found some cardboard boxes at the back of a very posh shop, which he started gathering for us to sleep on. At the time we didn’t realise what a bad reputation the park had, but nothing happened to us and we were able to return the next day to the bishop’s office.”

“Afterwards we split up. I was very fortunate and the first parish I and my companion went to, the priest took us in and we stayed there for the rest of the trip.

“ A real training in providence”

“It was an extraordinary experience and of seeing how God cared for us in big and small ways. For me it was a real training in providence. It’s something we all have to know for ourselves - is God real or not? Are we doing God’s work or our own work?”

“All in all I had a pretty easy time of it. Even for those who did not have such a comfortable time, afterwards everyone was happy and at peace at what they had experienced, knowing that God had been present in the experience teaching them through it.”

Two years ago in September, Lorenzo and Maurizia Lees, who are catechists of the Neo-Catechumenal Way in this country did the “Two by Two”. They had nine children at the time (now ten) so this was a bit of worry for mother, Maurizia. “I’m used to being with the children most of the time, so taking three weeks away from them was very difficult. But the children themselves were adamant that we should both go. They thought the whole thing was very cool, and our eldest son who is a seminarian, actually ended up going on the Two by Two himself.”

Divine Providence even worked for the children. They were on holiday in Sicily where they were “adopted” for the summer by a local family who had a boat and a swimming pool and took them all everywhere. Maurizia added “the children prayed together every night for our safety and so I came home to a really holy little family.”

The adventure for Maurizia and Lorenzo began, with 700 other catechists and priests from all over the world, with a week of retreat at the Domus Galilaeae, the Neo-Catechumenal retreat centre, in the Holy Land. Among those present was Archbishop Stanislaus Rilko, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, who read out a personal letter of encouragement from the Pope for their proposed mission. This all added to the atmosphere of excitement in the big hall, tinged with a little fear, as each person waited to find out whom they would be going with and where they would be sent. The locations for the sending this time were all in Europe and a huge map of the different countries dominated the room.

“Even the 80 year old tea lady wanted to go”

Lorenzo recalls, “When you do “Two by Two”, you don’t usually choose the person you go with. It’s all very random. Sometimes names are drawn from a hat. Sometimes Kiko, asks for volunteers for a particular country, if possible this is someone who speaks the language, but otherwise he will just point to a couple of people and send them off together. If it is known that someone has some kind of health problem this is taken into consideration when deciding where they are sent or whom they go with.” Some are dissuaded from going at all, such as one old lady who was over 80 who was helping with the teas, who wanted to go too. But she insisted on not being left out, as did a person with a broken foot and another who was a diabetic. Another surprise volunteer was Juan, the Jewish travel agent, who helps organise the travel arrangements for all the missionaries. He was so carried away by everyone’s zeal that when Kiko asked for special volunteers who could speak Hebrew to visit synagogues, he volunteered himself. His offer was accepted and he ended up going with Fr Francesco Votaggio to London.

“Homeless had a collection for the rich man and the priest!”

Here the unlikely pair had an amazing experience. They prayed the psalms together and visited both Roman Catholic churches and synagogues, sharing the Good News. They received great hospitality wherever they went, including from a group of homeless people. The latter had asked them for money, but when they heard they had come to share the Good News and had no money at all but were relying on Divine Providence, they had a collection for them! This was particularly moving for Juan, who is very wealthy, and not used to receiving from others. Maurizia remembers, “My one fear was being sent to a cold country, so I kept volunteering for places like Turkey and Greece, but it was not to be and I was sent to Denmark. But even so God was very good to me there and the temperature was much higher than normal for that time of the year. I also was sent out with Rita, whom I have known since I was a teenager in Italy.”

“5 Star Accommodation!”

Maurizia’s whole experience in fact was a positive one. By chance when she and Rita arrived in the capital, they came across a nun, in civvies but wearing a small cross, who had once been part of the Neo Catechumenal Way herself. She invited them back to her convent to sleep. Maurizia recalls, “We stayed there for 4 nights. It was 5 star accommodation and we even had an en suite bathroom so I could wash and iron my clothes every day.”

“In fact,” she comments, “As a mother of nine children, the whole trip was like a holiday for me!” The pair ended up preaching in various convents, including an enclosed convent and to a parish group, who as a result of hearing their witness decided to set up a community in their parish too. They also had lots of random interesting discussions and meetings with people along the way, including a Lutheran pastor working with drug addicts and a Baptist pastor. They were even given bread by a Moslem shopkeeper, who when they explained what they were doing blessed them in the name of Allah. The nuns they visited took them to the different cities they were supposed to go to. “God really provided,” says Maurizia. “At the beginning of the trip we had been tempted to keep some of our money for these journeys but we decided to give it all away and trust God to help us.”

“Sharing in the rejection of Christ”

The missionaries believe that rejection, if it is born in the right spirit, brings with it great spiritual fruits because those who are rejected share in the rejection of Christ, and by their acceptance bring down great graces both on themselves and on those who do the rejecting. This is illustrated in the now legendary Neo Catechumenal story which took place 15 years ago when a priest and a lay man were sent to Cologne. Here they were rejected so badly by a parish priest, that one of them was prompted to do what it says in the gospel, and take off his shoe and shake the dust from it. Six years later at the next such sending out, amazingly out of the thousand missionaries there, the same pair were picked by lot to travel together, and to be sent to the same city again. It was so strange that they decided to return to visit the priest who had originally rejected them. When the priest opened the door to them, he was overjoyed. He told them that when they had left he realised what he had done and the chance he had missed. He had been praying ever since that God would send them back and he would have another chance to welcome them and the message they brought. If Maurizia had a comparatively comfortable time, this was not the case for Lorenzo, who was sent to Sweden to the university town of Uppsala. He travelled with a priest who is a professor in dogmatic theology, who had last done the “Two by Two” many years ago when he was a young seminarian. When the pair arrived they bought a map of the city and looked for some poor to give the rest of their money to, but not seeing any around, they put their remaining funds in the charity box in a church.

“Experience of freedom”

Lorenzo remembers, “It was a great experience of freedom. We could see all the shops but they held no interest for us, as we had no money to buy anything.” The first thing we did was to go and find somewhere to pray and we asked God to help us and we interceded for the city. Then, as there was no Catholic bishop, we went to find the Lutheran bishop and explain why we were there. We met some nuns, who offered us hospitality, but their superior refused, as she felt what we were doing was totally irresponsible and stupid.”

“As we had nowhere to sleep we decided to go to the station. We were really hungry by this time as we had had no food for 24 hours, so I went to a bread shop to beg for some food. I told the owner that we were missionaries who had come to speak of Christ. He was not impressed and told me to go away. But then something made him change his mind and he came out of the shop and shouted at me down the street to come back and take some bread. We were overjoyed and laid a handkerchief on a bench, and blessed and thanked God for it, thinking of this man who had given it to us for the love of Christ.”

“Thrown onto the street in the cold”

“At the station we had to beg for help to even go to the toilet as you normally need to pay a few coins. It was very humbling to feel so vulnerable. At midnight we were thrown out into the cold and had to walk the streets to keep from freezing. We found a night club to sit in and keep warm, but it was full of drunks, and we were even thrown out of here at 3am when it closed. You leave, realising you are nobody in their eyes. Eventually we ended up talking to a taxi driver about Christ who was overjoyed to meet us and share his experiences as he himself had had an encounter with Christ which had changed his life. He then directed us to a Salvation Army hostel. They were full up, but the man on duty was very sympathetic. He gave us a couple of blankets and let us sleep there for a couple of hours. He woke us up at 6 am and even prepared breakfast for us, before sending us out.

The following day we went back to the station, where a man selling tea gave us a free cup. We met several people and shared the gospel with them. We returned to the Salvation Army hostel again that night, but found we didn’t have the right paperwork and weren’t allowed in. We came back at 4am when our kind man was on duty, and he let us sleep there again.

“Always the poor who offered hospitality”

During the day we went from church to church with the intention of encouraging the pastors and sharing our Christian faith together. Some were receptive, some weren’t. It was interesting, however, that it was always the poor who offered hospitality. In one place we prayed in ancient Greek with the pastor, who was a professor but he never asked if we needed anything. It was his cleaner, an Armenian lady, who came running after us and inviting us to come to her home for a meal. We prayed vespers with her using her Armenian bible and us using the English bible. When she realised we didn’t have a place to stay for the night, she let us sleep in her living room. We had our first shower here which was wonderful.

We spoke to a lot of people in the street and even had a short meeting with the rector of the university and his secretary. We were invited on the Sunday to a Pentecostal church by a person from the Salvation Army. Here we were offered hospitality by an elderly couple from the Philippines, who gave up their own bed for us. And we stayed here for the rest of our visit”.

“Easier to witness”

“The whole experience for us was a very powerful one. To be 10 days without any money! It is difficult to explain in words, but I wish I could have that same spirit of abandon I had there in my every day life. When I had nothing I found I was much more open to other people. It was somehow easier to be a witness. To be a Christian is to speak of Jesus, and to care for others. Material things often get in the way of this in our normal lives. My attitude to homeless people has also been changed by my experience. Every encounter we had I realise was a dialogue with God, which He had prepared for us. I came back changed by what I experienced.”

“I believe the devil wants to take away from us the zeal to announce the gospel and if we allow this to happen our life becomes flat and boring. Through this “Two by Two” experience, God gives us back our zeal. It is something special to go like a poor person, not being able to control anything, scrutinising the scriptures every day, praying the rosary, walking and loving the city where you are sent. Nobody likes to suffer and when you overcome this fear of suffering, the devil can no longer have any control over you, you are free for Christ.”

<< Top Home >>