In many ways, the young ask us to describe the qualities needed in an accompanier. The service of accompaniment is a genuine mission, which requires apostolic availability on the part of those who provide it. Like the deacon Philip, the accompanier is called to obey the call of the Spirit, going outwards and leaving behind the safe area enclosed by the walls of Jerusalem, a figure of the Christian community, so as to set out towards an inhospitable desert place, perhaps a dangerous one, in which he makes the effort to pursue a chariot.Having reached it, he must find a way of entering into a relationship with the foreign traveller, so as to elicit a question that perhaps would never have been formulated spontaneously (cf. Acts 8:26-40). In brief, to accompany requires placing oneself at the disposal of the Spirit of the Lord and of the one accompanied, with all his or her qualities and capacities, and then having the courage to step aside with humility.
TheoFonsAt the sources of the faith