Via Crucis - Brothers of the Sacred...

Foreword by the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi

This Way of the Cross grew out of an idea of Brother Bernard Couvillion, who developed the theme of each station by relating the steps in Christ’s climb up Calvary to social realities in to-day’s world. We studied together and agreed upon the essential elements of each station. My contribution, beyond doing the actual painting, was to use principles of iconography, composi-tion, and pictorial allegory to convey visually in the most relevant way possible the ideas sug-gested to me.

To accomplish the work, I set about re-reading the Gospels and doing documentary study about the realities I would be presenting. This became for me a deep personal reflection which brought me closer to the drama of Christ’s passion in a way I had never experienced, reliving it in ordinary life, aware that the common denominator is always and everywhere the reality of suffering.

I must add that I have always been opposed to commenting on my paintings because I believe that a painting should communicate on its own what it means; any form of explanation limits the message, conveyed in images which lose their universality when confined by words. I am convinced that the language of a painting can touch the heart more immediately and more deep-ly than any other medium.

The comments which follow, therefore, are not intended to “explain” what each painting means, but only to illustrate certain allegorical elements in their composition.

by Brother William Boyles, S.C.

In 1999, I had the privilege of seeing most of Alberto’s paintings in the hallway of our General House in Rome. I was fascinated by them and looked forward to their explanation. When they were posted on the General House’s web site (http://www.coindre.com/viacrucis/indexen.htm), I was eager, not only to see the paintings again, but to read about them. At about the same time, I became acquainted with a prayer service book by Bill Huebsch entitled People of God at Prayer (Twenty-Third Publications).

Using the format of Bill Huebsch's prayers and the content of the Via Crucis, I was moved to put the two together in the form of reflection prayers based on the themes of Social Justice con-tained therein.

Via Crucis

Reflections on Youth

for the Beginning of the 21 Century

Brother Bernard Couvillion, S.C.

Alberto Bertuzzi Brother William Boyles, S.C.

Foreword by the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi

This Way of the Cross grew out of an idea of Brother Bernard Couvillion, who developed the theme of each station by relating the steps in Christ’s climb up Calvary to social realities in to-day’s world. We studied together and agreed upon the essential elements of each station. My contribution, beyond doing the actual painting, was to use principles of iconography, composi-tion, and pictorial allegory to convey visually in the most relevant way possible the ideas sug-gested to me.

To accomplish the work, I set about re-reading the Gospels and doing documentary study about the realities I would be presenting. This became for me a deep personal reflection which brought me closer to the drama of Christ’s passion in a way I had never experienced, reliving it in ordinary life, aware that the common denominator is always and everywhere the reality of suffering.

I must add that I have always been opposed to commenting on my paintings because I believe that a painting should communicate on its own what it means; any form of explanation limits the message, conveyed in images which lose their universality when confined by words. I am convinced that the language of a painting can touch the heart more immediately and more deep-ly than any other medium.

The comments which follow, therefore, are not intended to “explain” what each painting means, but only to illustrate certain allegorical elements in their composition.

by Brother William Boyles, S.C.

In 1999, I had the privilege of seeing most of Alberto’s paintings in the hallway of our General House in Rome. I was fascinated by them and looked forward to their explanation. When they were posted on the General House’s web site (http://www.coindre.com/viacrucis/indexen.htm), I was eager, not only to see the paintings again, but to read about them. At about the same time, I became acquainted with a prayer service book by Bill Huebsch entitled People of God at Prayer (Twenty-Third Publications).

Using the format of Bill Huebsch's prayers and the content of the Via Crucis, I was moved to put the two together in the form of reflection prayers based on the themes of Social Justice con-tained therein.

The Voice of the Church

by Pope John Paul II

Letter to Mrs. Mijo Beccaria,

president of the International Catholic Children’s Bureau (ICCB)

on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the organization

(March 3, 1998).

Still today, in many rich and poor countries, children are too often exploited and their dignity wounded. Their physical, psychological, intellectual, moral, and spiritual development is being impeded.

At the end of this millennium, the oppressive situations which victimize children are numerous. Recourse to abortion constitutes a criminal attack on life itself and on the dignity of all that is human, in particular of the tiniest children, with whom Christ identified himself. Handicapped children are made social outcasts. In their youngest years, some children are at the mercy of unscrupulous employers and, placed prema-turely into commercial competition, they are subjected to degrading or harmful work which removes all possibility of their following schooling indispensable to their growth. Certain children do not have a home and must live in the street, in refuges, or in detention centers. Also, drug and pornography rings, traffickers in human organs and participants in armed conflicts knowingly involve themselves in despicable exploi-tation of unprotected youth.

As you are doing, it is urgent to continue to denounce these situations vigorously. In this spirit, I invite civil authorities and all institutions which have a role in the protec-tion and education of children to oppose these forms of oppression with the utmost energy and firmness. (Evangelium vitae, 10)

Why? Brother Bernard Couvillion, S.C.

Our spirituality begins at the foot of the cross. André Coindre was a member of the Society of the Cross. In one of his sermons he quotes Saint Augustine: “The cross is a school where Jesus teaches, a pulpit where he announces all the truths of salvation.” In his own elo-quent way and with a cross in his hands he preaches to those gathered in a parish mis-sion, “This cross will preach to you instead of me and will reveal that salvation is your only and necessary treasure. A lance pierced this Heart and this wound was meant to touch your own heart.”

This Via Crucis enables us to continue the contemplation of the mystery of the Cross which was the center of André’s unfinished life. I remember being impressed, when I first read Brother Jean Roure’s chronology, by the repeated images of mission crosses planted through the departments of Loire, Haute-Loire, and Rhône. There remain about twenty-five planted and blessed by An-dré Coindre himself, forming a Via Crucis of his preaching ministry. We have inherited from him the courage to confront the Cross and the faith to celebrate its mystery. This Via Crucis is dedicated to him in the hope that it might recall the spiritual path he traced.

Why a Via Crucis of young people?

If meditating on Jesus pierced on the cross was his starting point, contemplating young peoples’ suffering was a frequent stopping point on André Coindre’s path. The compassion he felt for Jesus became trans-formed into compassion for young victims of chaotic social changes. His heart made the jump between the abandonment Jesus felt and that felt by the little girls of St. Nizier, between Jesus’ incarceration and that of boys in Roanne and St. Joseph’s prisons, between Jesus’ failure and the colossal

failure of village schools.

Many years ago, while making the traditional way of the cross, I was stopped by the words of Jesus to the women lamenting him, “Do not weep for me, but for yourselves and your children.” (Lk 23: 27-31) What struck me was that Jesus, despite his own suffering, felt com-passion for the children of Jerusalem. He trans-cended his pain to turn the women’s gaze from himself to their children. He turned me around as well; it was as though he said, “Stop practic-ing devotions centered on me. Join me in ask-ing the Father to console young people in pain.” Since that experience during my initial for-mation, the way of the cross changed for me from a devotion of empathy into a moment of prayerful union with him in his apostolic mis-sion.

During my visits in the institute since 1994 I met many young people whose lives were a Via Crucis. Writing Circular 3 about them awak-ened in me a desire to have in the general house permanent images which would help our local community to center its communal apostolic prayer on the sufferings of the young whom our brothers serve. An occasion to realize my desire came after the remodeling of our chapel in 1996. The plaster stations had been removed because of their deteriorated condition. The paintings of this Via Crucis, representing the spiritual and material sufferings of the young people in our care, take their place

Where is Jesus?

Some observers, studying the unlabeled stations as they arrived one by one from the artist’s stu-dio, said, “I don’t see the link with Jesus.” This observation recalls the question of the just who asked, “When did we see you hungry or thirsty or away from home or naked or in prison?” The Lord’s response shows that he can be found in the littlest and most vulnerable. (Mt 25: 37-40)

The council fathers of Vatican II, in a series of concluding messages to the peoples of thworld, addressed these words to the suffering: “Know that you are neither alone nor separated, neither

abandoned nor useless. You are called by Christ, you are his living and transparent image.” And in his closing homily, Pope Paul VI addressed all of us in the Church: “In the countenance of every human being -- especially when tears and sufferings make it most transparent -- we can and we must recognize the face of Christ.”

The truth, then, of these stations is that each presents the face of Christ in the face of young victims. To remember that truth, I keep in my bank of favorite quotations this one from Hans Urs van Balthasar: “In my distant brother is not just the image, but the reality of the love of God suffering for him. Like a mirror, his human face reflects the face of God, simultaneously in a faithful and a distorted way. Human features are the most beautiful calligraphy of God’s Word, written on the parchment of the human countenance.”

Why in the Hallway?

An apostolic spirituality requires a link of reciprocity between prayer and life; we must act our prayer and pray our action. The hallway leading to our chapel symbolizes that link between our prayer and our lives. For example, in passing to the chapel to pray the psalms twice a day, we pass between these images of young victims calling out, “Brothers, pray your psalms for us. We don’t have the strength or the faith or the words to pray for ourselves. Cry out to heaven to free us. We have no voice.” The saint with the golden voice, John Chrysostom, makes an appeal to us: “You want to honor the body of Christ? Don’t despise him when he is naked. Don’t honor him in your church with silk vestments while you leave him outside suffering from the cold and lacking clothes. Learn how to live according to the Wisdom of Christ: honor him the way he himself wants to be honored. What is the point of setting his table with golden vessels while he himself is dying of hunger? Remind yourself that Christ is really going around like a stranger with no place to call

home while you are embellishing floors, walls and columns in his name. You are attaching lamps with golden chains and you don’t want to see that he is chained up in prison. When you decorate your churches, don’t forget your little brother in distress, for that temple is worth more than the other.”

Why not photos?

It is said that photos tell the unvarnished truth. A bank of photos could have docu-mented in accurate detail the ways in which our children are victims of adult sin. However, these stations go one step further. They are all based upon photos, but they are richer for being the result of the reflection, the interpretation, and the composition of the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi.

Rule 129 says, “Thanks to the dynamism of our faith, we meet God in events, in people and in a special way in prayer.” The photos which inspired these stations are analogous to the events and people of our lives. The artist’s interpretation is analogous to the dynamism of our faith. His “factual paint-ings” become, then, analogous to the special way of looking on life that is apostolic pray-er. The artist’s comments offer a visual lan-guage which is a starting point for our prayer-ful contemplation of the realities that inspired his interpretation of each station.

Each is also a window that lets light in to reveal in this comfortable home the drama of misery and of young people’s need for justice in different parts of the world. I believe a general house in an international institute should be a window on the world stretching our prayer and our mission to wid-er horizons. Each station is painted on the wooden panels which once formed the con-fessional of the chapel, a fact that awakens our consciences to the reality of social sin. Each is an act of confession and of contrition for the effect that adult sin has on its young victims.

I -- Condemned to Death Child Labor

Opening Prayer

Leader Let us take a few moments to collect the cares and events of today. Let our minds, bodies and hearts quiet down and relax in the loving heart of our beloved Savior.

(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet; the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the children of the world who are deprived of their childhood dreams by the need to work for their living.

All In the name of God, Amen.

Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Seek The Lord. (# 213 in Glory & Praise, or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 19: 13-15):

All Thanks be to God for these words of Scripture.

Second Reading

Reader Comments of the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi:

Via Crucis

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Some children were brought to Jesus so he could lay hands on them and pray for them. The disciples told them not to bother him. But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven

belongs to such as these." And he put his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

The word of the Lord.

The setting is desolate and symbolic of this boy’s situation; he is the sole protagonist of

the composition. The background is made up of a wall of flaking stucco against which he is

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Via Crucis — I

Reflection

Leader Let us pause as we read silently the following reflection by Brother Bernard Couvillion, S.C.

All Thanks for these words of Alberto.

Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi’s painting and the plight of child laborers around the world.

leaning and of another brick wall which be-gins at the bottom left and rises almost to the point of obscuring the patch of blue sky which still remains visible above. The walls confine the boy’s life within a circle of oppression, deprivation, and pain.

The child, in ragged clothes and barefoot, stares out beyond the painting with a look of sadness and emptiness. Beside him is a make-shift wheelbarrow: not a plaything, but a tool for his work, the instrument of his condemna-tion, the device which has robbed him of his childhood dreams and of his future.

In Lille, France, in April 1996, the group of seven industrialized nations focused interna-tional attention on the plight of child laborers.

The International Labor Organization esti-mates that two hundred million children worldwide under the age of fifteen work for

Via Crucis — I

Prayer

Leader Friends, say our prayers for us. We don’t have the strength, or the faith, or the words to pray for ourselves. Cry out to heaven to free us. We have no voice. Lamentations 5 (passim)

I Lord, remember everything that has hap- pened to us. See all the sorrows we bear!

II We are orphaned and fatherless. Our mothers are widowed. We have to pay for water to drink, and even firewood is expensive.

I Those who pursue us are at our heels; we are exhausted but are given no rest.

II It was our ancestors who sinned, but they died before the hand of judgment fell. We have suffered the punishment they deserved!

I Slaves have now become our masters; there is no one left to rescue us.

II We must hunt for food in the wilderness at the risk of our lives. Our enemies rape the women and young girls.

I Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs, and the old men are treated with contempt.

II Our young men are led away to work at millstones, and the children stagger under heavy loads of wood.

I The joy of our hearts has ended; our dancing has turned to mourning.

II Our hearts are sick and weary, and our eyes grow dim with tears.

I But Lord, you remain the same forever! Your throne continues from generation to generation.

II Why do you continue to forget us? Why have you forsaken us for so long?

I Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again! Give us back the joys we once had!

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their living. Often it is children who dip our matchsticks into phosphorus or mix the gun-powder for our fireworks displays. Boys and girls who have never seen a schoolroom draw molten glass from the furnaces to be formed into bracelets and common glassware. Some are as young as 6.

Aghan, 12, was recently rescued from a carpet factory by Save the Childhood Movement, an NGO that raids factories employing children. He was kidnapped at 9 from his rural home and sold to a carpetmaker. “I was always cry-ing for my mother,” he told his rescuers. That didn’t please his boss, who scarred his face with a heated knife and blinded his left eye with acid. Aghan stopped crying, but he never

stopped dreaming of being able to write his parents to tell them what he was going through. “If I could read and write, I would have told them ‘I am in hell.’”

Asia accounts for more than 50 percent of the world’s child laborers. In the Philippines 4.5 million children work. In some African coun-tries close to 50 percent of children under age fourteen work. In Brazil 34 percent of chil-dren between the ages of ten and fourteen are working, a total of 7 million, most of whom live in the streets. Spain has more than one hundred thousand child workers, generally on family farms. (Time, April 15, 1996; The World & I, February 1995)


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of child laborers affect my life and ministry? What can I/we do about this problem in the world? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on child labor.

(Time is allowed for these personal reflections.)

Blessing

Leader May God who created us out of love . . .

All O God, we love you without end.

Leader May the Spirit who supports and guides us . . .

All O Spirit, we listen to your voice.

Leader And may Jesus Christ our brother and our savior . . .

All O Jesus, we adore you.

Leader now bless us, direct us, and be with us in love, now and forever.

All We receive your blessing with full hearts. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Leader O God, we have listened to your word in the sacred scriptures; in our own minds and hearts; and in the minds and hearts of all who are gathered here.

We are ready to be your hands and feet; your eyes and ears; as we recognize your Word within us and among those we serve.

All In the name of our Trinitarian God, Amen.

Via Crucis — I

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II -- Given the Cross Materialism

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate materialism in our selves and our culture, and its effects on the young people we serve.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, I Found The Treasure. (# 102 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 19: 16-23):

Via Crucis

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Someone came to Jesus with this question: "Teacher, what good things must I do to have eternal life?"

"Why ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "Only God is good. But to answer your question, you can receive eternal life if you keep the commandments."

"Which ones?" the man asked.

And Jesus replied: "'Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not testify falsely. Honor your father and mother. Love your neighbor as your self.'"

"I've obeyed all these commandments," the young man replied. "What else must I do?"

Jesus told him, "If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." But when the young man heard this, he went sadly away because he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is very hard for a rich person to get into the Kingdom of Heaven.



Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the effect of material goods on ourselves and the young people we serve.

Reflection


Via Crucis — II

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The film “Pudding Chômeur” was released in September 1996 in Montreal while I was there. Its publicity poster is a shot from the ceiling of an idle, smiling sixteen-year-old boy in a relaxed pose on a bed. He’s dressed in stand-ard North-American summertime casual wear: leisure shorts, printed T-shirt, Nikes. His an-kles are crossed, his hands behind his head on the pillow. What caught my eye was the satin-covered bed. It was in the form of a cross. That poster stays with me as a metaphor of the cozy secular materialism that has become the standard for many young people in indus-trialized countries.

Although they don’t think of it as a cross, they are addicted to one that leads to slow death. They have credit-card access to tranquilizers for all their senses -- CD walkman, videos, alcohol, recreational drugs, fast food and faster cars -- capable of satisfying their desires instantly. But in fact they are deprived: of hardship, of work, of challenge … of privation. Theirs is a spiritual void. They don’t realize that the cushions on which they are lounging form a satin-covered cross.

Like the adults who gave them their values, many young people in privileged material circumstances fear being alone, in silence,

In the background is the façade of a building covered over with huge signs and billboards, advertising the most famous brand names (the façade calls to mind the well-known cross-roads of Piccadilly Circus in London). In the foreground, standing out in the midst of the cars, is a big red convertible sports-car. A smiling girl with arms outstretched is sitting on the back of the seat. The entire front of the building is obscured, and nothing of its original architectural characteristics can be seen: marketing and consumerism distort everything, wrap everything in an explosion of colors, proclaiming an artificial and incon-gruous world.

Behind the building there is just emptiness, nothing to the left nor to the right. There is nothing to protract the perspective, only a cloudless sky, as if to emphasize the façade, our consumerism and the emptiness behind it. The young woman, apparently happy and oblivious in the midst of the dazzling lights and colors, spreads her arms out like Christ on the cross, which is the façade of painted-over unreality, the illusion of reflected light, the void in which ideals die, poisoned by materi-alism. The shop window is a mirror reflecting what usually remains unseen behind us.

Via Crucis — II

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face-to-face with themselves and with God. They take all sorts of diversions, usually illusory, sometimes with no other reason than, “All my friends are going.”

This name-brand culture is seductive. From the porch of the brothers’ house in Yaounde,

a young Cameroon brother pointed up to a res-idential hillside in a higher part of the city. “In that neighborhood most houses have a sat-ellite dish.” He added regretfully, “The kids are more American than the Americans they watch on their TVs.”

Prayer

Leader Friends, pray our prayer for us. We are blinded by the goods of the world. We don’t yet realize that true happiness lies elsewhere. Psalm 73

I How good God is to the upright, the Lord, to those who are clean of heart!

II But, as for me, I lost my balance; my feet all but slipped, because I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

I For they suffer no pain; their bodies are healthy and sleek. They are free of the burdens of life; they are not afflicted like others.

II Thus pride adorns them as a necklace; violence clothes them as a robe. Out of their stupidity comes sin; evil thoughts flood their hearts.

I They scoff and spout their malice; from on high they utter threats. They set their mouths against the heavens, their tongues roam the earth.

II So my people turn to them and drink deeply of their words. They say, "Does God really know? Does the Most High have any knowledge?"

I Such, then, are the wicked, always care free, increasing their wealth.

II Is it in vain that I have kept my heart clean, washed my hands in innocence? For I am afflicted day after day, chastised every morning.

I Had I thought, "I will speak as they do," I would have betrayed your people.

II Though I tried to understand all this, it was too difficult for me, till I entered the sanctuary of God and came to understand their end.

I You set them, indeed, on a slippery road; you hurl them down to ruin. How ___

suddenly they are devastated; undone by disasters forever!

II They are like a dream after waking, Lord, dismissed like shadows when you arise.

I Since my heart was embittered and my soul deeply wounded, I was stupid and could not understand; I was like a brute beast in your presence.

II Yet I am always with you; you take hold of my right hand.

I With your counsel you guide me, and at the end receive me with honor. Whom else have I in the heavens? None beside you delights me on earth.

II Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever. But those who are far from you perish; you destroy those unfaithful to you.

I As for me, to be near God is my good, to make the Lord God my refuge. I shall declare all your works in the gates of daughter Zion.


Sharing

Leader How does materialism affect me? . . . Those I work with? . . . The young people I/we serve? In response we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on how material goods affect you and those around you.


Blessing


All O God, we love you without end



Via Crucis — II

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Closing Prayer




Via Crucis — II

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III -- First Fall Dropped Out of School

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the false freedom of youth; those lost in the emptiness of lost ideals.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Come, My Children. (# 50 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of John (Jn 17: passim):

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Via Crucis

Jesus said, "Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.

When I was with them I protected them in

your name that you gave me, and I guarded them. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.

I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.


Second Reading

Reader Comments of the artist, Alberto Bertuzzi.

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Via Crucis — III

I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you

loved me may be in them and I in them."


Not only the clothing these youngsters are wearing but also their way of wearing them shouts out their desire for freedom: loose trou-sers, open shirts, untied laces. This is a free-dom which feeds on violations of the law, a freedom which wants nothing to do with insti-tutions and social conventions.

They share a cigarette. Smoking makes them

feel as though they are standing tall and sure of themselves, but their eyes betray their sadness and bewilderment. And these same eyes, behind pretended bravado, are lost in the emptiness created by a lack of ideals. Their graffiti on the wall behind them are spattered with remnants of their nightmares and glimps-es into the dark monsters which threaten to drag them off.


Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the plight of school drop-outs around the world.

Reflection


The small group of 15- and 16-year-olds was waiting in an automotive workshop where they report each day as an alternative to ordinary classrooms. With fanfare and cameras, the team presented to them the “superior general from Rome and the provin-cial.” We extended our hands to greet each one in turn. But the second in line, arms firm-ly crossed, threw back his head. He re-fused to shake our hands. That gesture of pro-test hollowed out a spot in me sensitive to the shame and anger felt by young people who fail out of school.

Archbishop Maurice Couture of Québec said recently, “When a third of our young people dropout before completing secondary school, that is a failure for an entire society. Drop-ping out is the result of a wide pattern of abandonment.” (Notre-Dame-du-Cap, November 1995)

“Why not leave?” asks a student. “My school was a horrible place. Graffiti, vandalism, and potheads everywhere. Two fires in the toilets

shut the whole school down for almost two months. Half of the class is always absent. Every morning my stomach was in knots.” (Actualité, September 1, 1995)

In some school systems failure is a matter of educational policy. It weeds out the average students to guarantee university studies to the elite.

In Togo, I am told, of those who sit for the BAC at the end of secondary school, only 18% pass. The competition is intense. Furthermore, because of economic and political factors, students are often robbed of their efforts. There are years of study lost: “blank years” when the government does not even administer the exam. Teachers take jobs in two or three schools to make a decent liv-ing; they often don’t show up. Students waste their time waiting. Unscrupulous officials, selling copies of the exam, cause widespread cheating scandals that invalidate the results of the conscientious.

I Blessed are you, and praiseworthy, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and glorious forever is your name.

II For you are just in all you have done; all your deeds are faultless, all your ways right, and your judgments proper.

I For we have sinned and transgressed by ___

departing from you, and we have done every kind of evil.

II Your commandments we have not heeded or observed, nor have we done as you ordered us for our good.

I For your name's sake, do not deliver us up forever, or make void your covenant.

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Prayer

Leader Friends, pray the prayer of those who don’t realize God’s love and mercy. With them and for them, ask for a true trust in God’s loving mercy. (Daniel 3: passim)

Via Crucis — III


Sharing

Leader How do young people who have lost their ideals affect me and my ministry? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on school drop-outs.


Blessing









II Do not take away your mercy from us, for the sake of Abraham, your beloved, Isaac your servant, and Israel your holy one, to whom you promised to multiply their offspring like the stars of heaven, or the sand on the shores of the sea.

I For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation, brought low everywhere in the world this day because of sins.

II But with contrite heart and humble spirit let us be received.

I As though it were holocausts of rams and bullocks, or thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your presence today ___

as we follow you unreservedly; for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.

II And now we follow you with our whole heart, we fear you and we pray to you.

I Do not let us be put to shame, but deal with us in your kindness and great mercy.

II Deliver us by your wonders, and bring glory to your name, O Lord: let all those be routed who inflict evils on your servants; let them be shamed and powerless, and their strength broken; let them know that you are the Lord God, glorious over the whole world."

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Via Crucis — III

Closing Prayer




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Via Crucis — III

Via Crucis

IV -- His Mother Abortion

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the prevalence of abortion in our world and its effects both on the mother and the child.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, The Cry of the Poor. (# 61 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Luke (Lk 23: 26-29):


Second Reading


15

As they led him away they took hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country; and after laying the cross on him, they made him carry it behind Jesus. A large crowd of people followed Jesus, in-cluding many women who mourned and la-mented him. Jesus turned to them and said,

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your chil-dren, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.' "



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the problem of wholesale abortion around the world.

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Via Crucis — IV

Reflection


“The days are coming,” Jesus told the women, “when they will say, ‘Happy are the sterile, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.’”

We already know those days. I choose not to enter the political debate surrounding abor-tion. I cannot know the suffering caused by an unwanted pregnancy; still less can I know

The young woman's profile tends to accen- tuate her advanced pregnancy. The back-ground of empty sky and horizon suggest her sense of isolation and loneliness.

She looks off into the empty distance, the expression on her face revealing the sadness

and pain she is experiencing because she has decided on abortion. Her distress seems to be further emphasized by her dress, a black field upon which are scattered little flowers, symbols of countless lives which have been cut short.

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Via Crucis — IV

what pain the unborn experience. I have been moved by the horrible pictures and the elo-quent pleas that give outraged voice to the thousands of voiceless infants aborted each day.

Chief among those voices giving hope to the unborn is that of Pope John Paul II. Since being in Rome I am more aware of the depth of his personal pain on their behalf. I admire his courage in speaking out for the grace of new life from the moment of conception. Some world organizations which otherwise mobilize international response to children’s

issues do not show proof of such courage. They keep silence or they compromise when it comes to abortion.

On November 11, 1996, I was at St. Peter’s Square when eight thousand Polish pilgrims were assembling enthusiastically to greet the pope on his 50th anniversary of ordination. He told them, “respect the right to life from conception to natural death.” Like Jesus who deflected the women’s attention from himself to their children, the Holy Father turned the thoughts of guests who came in his honor to the rights of the suffering unborn.

Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of unwanted children who cannot utter this prayer themselves. Psalm 71 (passim)

I In you, Lord, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame. In your justice rescue and deliver me; listen to me and save me!

II Be my rock and refuge, my secure stronghold; for you are my rock and fortress.

I My God, rescue me from the power of the wicked, from the clutches of the violent. You are my hope, Lord; my trust, God, from my youth.

II On you I depend since birth; from my mother's womb you are my strength; my hope in you never wavers.

I God, do not stand far from me; my God, hasten to help me.

II Bring to a shameful end those who attack me; cover with contempt and scorn those who seek my ruin.

I I will always hope in you ___

and add to all your praise. My mouth shall proclaim your just deeds, day after day your acts of deliverance, though I cannot number them all.

II I will speak of the mighty works of the Lord; O God, I will tell of your singular justice. God, you have taught me from my youth; to this day I proclaim your wondrous deeds.

I You have done great things; O God, who is your equal?

II Turn and comfort me, that I may praise you with the lyre for your faithfulness, my God, and sing to you with the harp, O Holy One of Israel!

I My lips will shout for joy as I sing your praise; my soul, too, which you have redeemed. Yes, my tongue shall recount your justice day by day.

II For those who sought my ruin will have been shamed and disgraced.


Sharing

Leader How does abortion, or the threat of abortion, affect me and my ministry? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on abortion in our world.


Blessing









Closing Prayer




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Via Crucis — IV

Via Crucis

V - Simon of Cyrene Help !

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate violence and neglect in our society, especially against young people.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Whatsoever You Do, (or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 13: 8-10)

Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be,

are summed up in this saying, (namely) "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.



Second Reading


19

The setting is the bare exterior of a house. Two chairs stand out against the yellow wall (yellow symbolizes warning or danger). A woman standing in the doorway on the right

glares menacingly on the child bent over the chair in an attitude of despondency.

The woman’s dress ripples in the wind -- the

wind of her anger, of the violence which has just been unleashed upon the child, and his bare lower back reveals the marks of that vi-olence. His despondency and the barren set-ting symbolize that he is beyond help.

The bright light creates oblique shadows of

the chairs, but the body of the child sheds no shadow as if to negate his very existence in the world -- a world without mercy, a world which has not the least interest in him and refuses to recognize his rights as a human being, a world which does nothing to help him live.

Via Crucis — V


Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we comtemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the problem of violence in our society and world.

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Reflection


Simon of Cyrene, a complete stranger to Jesus, helped him. Paradoxically, surprising numbers of children are physically abused by

the adults they most love and trust. In the United States, the number of children abused and neglected by their parents has soared in a

Via Crucis — V

Prayer

Leader Friends, pray my prayer for me. I am too hurt and too angry at those I trusted to pray myself. Psalm 55

I Listen, God, to my prayer; do not hide from my pleading; hear me and give answer.

II I rock with grief; I groan at the uproar of the enemy, the clamor of the wicked.

I They heap trouble upon me, savagely accuse me.

II My heart pounds within me; death's terrors fall upon me.

I Fear and trembling overwhelm me; shuddering sweeps over me.

II I say, "If only I had wings like a dove that I might fly away and find rest.

I Far away I would flee; I would stay in the desert.

II I would soon find a shelter from the raging wind and storm."

I Lord, check and confuse their scheming.

II I see violence and strife in the city making rounds on its walls day and night.

I Within are mischief and evil; treachery is there as well; oppression and fraud never leave its streets.

II If an enemy had reviled me, that I could bear; If my foe had viewed me with contempt; from that I could hide.

I But it was you, my other self, my comrade and friend, you, whose company I enjoyed, at whose side I walked in procession in the house of God.

II Let death take them by surprise; let them go down alive to Sheol, for evil is in their homes and hearts.

I But I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me.

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ten-year period ending in 1997 from 1.4 million to some 3 million, more than eight times faster than the increase in overall children’s population! Nine of 10 profession-als cite a rise in parental substance abuse and binge drinking as the cause of this epidemic of child battering in the world’s richest country. (America, April 24, 1999)

In traditional societies, often for cultural reasons, girls are more vulnerable than boys. In India the brothers explained to me that an oppressive set of dowry laws makes girls a liability, subjecting them to neglect and even infanticide. Amnesty International estimates that 135 million of the world’s girls have undergone genital mutilation, approximately

6,000 per day. It is practiced extensively in Africa and is common in some countries in the Middle East.

Often physical violence is administered in the name of good discipline, or as a justified pedagogical tool. In schools in Zimbabwe, I learned that teachers use “beatings,” as they call them, not just to punish bad behavior but to chastise students who fumble a recitation or fail to do homework. I was present at a Cameroon schoolyard assembly when the brother principal announced that the strap would be given a moratorium for a week to give students a chance to perform under a more merciful system of correction. They cheered.

Via Crucis — V

II At dusk, dawn, and noon I will grieve and complain, and my prayer will be heard.

I God will give me freedom and peace from those who war against me, though there are many who oppose me.

II God, who sits enthroned forever, will hear me and humble them. For they will not mend their ways; they have no fear of God.

I They strike out at friends and go back on their promises.

II Softer than butter is their speech, but war is in their hearts.

I Smoother than oil are their words, but they are unsheathed swords.

II Cast your care upon the Lord, who will give you support.

I God will never allow the righteous to stumble.

II But you, God, will bring them down to the pit of destruction.

I These bloodthirsty liars will not live half their days, but I put my trust in you.


Sharing

Leader How does violence, especially violence in our homes, schools, society and world affect me and my ministry? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on violence in our world.


Blessing









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Closing Prayer




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Via Crucis

VI—Veronica’s veil Image of Christ

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the widespread hunger in some parts of the world — together with the plenty in other parts.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Save Us, O Lord. (#212 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the letter of James (James 2: 14-18)


Second Reading


What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have

works, is dead. Indeed someone might say, "You have faith and I have works." Demon-strate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.


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The main component of this painting is the child in the foreground. His face witnesses to his hunger and pain. It is the face of Christ. The background is totally white to represent the veil of Veronica. The inverted figure 3 on his forehead, a reference to the Trinity, is echoed by the presence of two other children standing behind the first: Christ is divine, one and triune. The two other children, a girl and a boy, indicate not only that God has no gender, masculine or feminine, but that the face of Christ may be found in the face of all persons who suffer, be they male or female.

The greenery in the bottom left hand corner calls to mind the lush colors of nature, as does the bough in the hand of one of the children. This image of nature is in stark contrast with the situation of hunger and suffering shown in the faces of the children and illustrates how famine is often not so much the result of the action of nature, but rather of human selfish-ness and greed.

Via Crucis — VI

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Reflection


After a magnificent ceremony celebrating the perpetual profession of the first Chadian brother in December of 1998, the guests were invited in groups by the various communities forming the mission parish to outdoor tables in the shade of trees that cooled the mission compound. Each table was served a common tray of rice, meat, vegetables and sauce from which we ate with our fingers. Because our table included the bishop, the ceremony officials and the religious superiors, it received food in copious supply. We couldn’t possibly finish it.

I didn’t realize while we were eating that groups of poorly-dressed kids from the village had been gathering near our table. After ver-ifying that we had our fill, one of our hosts took our tray with the idea of setting it on the ground so the children could help themselves. They did, but with what ferocity! In the melee, the tray overturned and they competed for the last bits by scraping dust and sand into their mouths with them.

The desperate scramble was repeated as each guest table finished. Though embarrassed, none of the adults commented. I pretended not to see; still, the scene is engraved in my memory. It gave me an idea of the intensity of hunger’s pains, which I have never experi-enced. It showed me that even outside of times of famine many children are left to their own devices just to survive. It led me to read more about the effects on food supply of a country exploited for a generation by a corrupt dictator. It made me cry.

The goal of the 1996 World Food Summit to halve the number of malnourished children by 2015 will not be met. The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts that there will be 135 million malnourished children under five in 2020. This means that 40% percent of children under five years old in South Asia and one third in sub-Saharan Afri-ca and Southeast Asia will be going hungry in 2020.

I Shepherd of Israel, listen, guide of the flock of Joseph!

II From your throne upon the cherubim reveal yourself to Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh. Stir up your power, come to save us.

I O Lord of hosts, restore us; Let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

II Lord of hosts, how long will you burn with anger while your people pray?

I You have fed them the bread of tears, made them drink tears in abundance.

II You have left us to be fought over by our neighbors; our enemies deride us.

I O Lord of hosts, restore us; let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

II You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove away the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground; it took root and filled the land.

Prayer

Leader Friends, hunger and pain prevent me from praying as I would like. Pray my prayer in my place. Psalm 80

Via Crucis — VI

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Sharing

Leader How does hunger in the midst of plenty affect me in my ministry? How does hunger in the world affect me? . . . those I work with? . . . . In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on hunger in the midst of plenty in our world.


Blessing









I The mountains were covered by its shadow, the cedars of God by its branches. It sent out boughs as far as the sea, shoots as far as the river.

II Why have you broken down the walls, so that all who pass by pluck its fruit?

I The boar from the forest strips the vine; the beast of the field feeds upon it.

II Turn again, Lord of hosts; look down from heaven and see; Attend to this vine, ___

the shoot your right hand has planted.

I Those who would burn or cut it down -- may they perish at your rebuke.

II May your help be with the man at your right hand, with the one whom you once made strong.

I Then we will not withdraw from you; revive us, and we will call on your name.

II Lord of hosts, restore us; let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

Via Crucis — VI

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Closing Prayer




Via Crucis — VI

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After this, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem at the Sheep (Gate) a pool called in Hebrew Bethesda, with five porticoes. In the-se lay a large number of ill, blind, lame, and cripple. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been ill for a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be well?" The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; while I am on my way, someone else gets down there before me." Jesus said to him, "Rise, take up your mat, and

walk." Immediately the man became well, took up his mat, and walked.

Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who was cured, "It is the sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." He answered them, "The man who made me well told me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" They asked him, "Who is the man who told you, 'Take it up and walk'?" The man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away, since there was a crowd there.


Via Crucis

VII—Second fall Landmines

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate children wounded, physically and psychologically by war.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Ashes. (#23 in Glory & Praise, or choose some other appropriate song.

First Reading

Reader A reading from the gospel of John (John 5: 1-13)

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Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the problem of war and violence in our society and world.

Via Crucis — VII

Against the background of a drab dark wall a brightly-painted poster clamors out publicity about basketball champs with faces aglow and athletic builds. All this is only a brightly-colored dream for the child in the foreground: he has had a leg blown off by a landmine.

His eyes cannot manage to see life with any semblance of serenity, his lips can not allow

him even the merest smile; the only thing he can manage to do is raise his arms to heaven. It is a childlike gesture expressing an abandoned dream, like a balloon which has slipped through his hands and is floating away in the sky. But this same gesture is also the orante, the traditional posture of prayer.

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Via Crucis — VII

Reflection


In northern Uganda I asked why there seemed to be so many children amputees missing one or both legs or hands. The answer came in a word: landmines. The rebel terrorists who arm themselves in Sudan return to plant mines in their own villages, on pathways, roads and bridges. Whatever the location, the intention is the same: to intimidate. The International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva esti-mates that more than two million mines were laid last year. Only 100,000 were cleared. Every month two thousand civilians are killed or maimed by mines, about 40% of them chil-dren under the age of 15.

Cambodia has more mines than children -- two for every child. Children are particularly vulnerable to mines because they are closer to the center of the blast and because of their curiosity and love of play.

During conflicts they have been trapped in-doors or underground. “As soon as the

fighting is over,” explains a Unicef officer, “they are desperate to get out and have a look around. All they want to do is to breathe in the fresh air, to run and play and live a normal life again. Try telling them they can’t do that.”

Mines, with their different shapes and colors, are enticing. Kurdish children look for mine parts to build toy cars. The tiny “butterfly mines,” designed to deliver a small blast that will only blow away a hand or a foot, are of-ten dropped from the air. Children in some places call them “green parrots.” The physical wounds inflicted by mines are all too obvious; the psychological ones are less so. Children who grow up in a minefield often suffer de-pression, weight loss, inability to concentrate, sleeping difficulties, hyperactivity, and failure to thrive. Then there is the terrible prospect of those who will grow up to perpetuate the violence they have experienced. (www.oneworld.org)

Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of children stricken by landmines. Psalm 57

I Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me. In you I seek shelter.

II In the shadow of your wings I seek shelter till harm pass by. I call to God Most High, to God who provides for me.

I May God send help from heaven to save me, shame those who trample upon me. May God send fidelity and love.

II I must lie down in the midst of lions hungry for human prey. Their teeth are spears and arrows; their tongue, a sharpened sword.

I Show yourself over the heavens, God; may your glory appear above all the earth.

II They have set a trap for my feet; my soul is bowed down;

I They have dug a pit before me. May they fall into it themselves!

II My heart is steadfast, God, my heart is steadfast.

I I will sing and chant praise.

II Awake, my soul; awake, lyre and harp! I will wake the dawn.

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Via Crucis — VII


Sharing

Leader How does war and violence affect me in my ministry? How does violence among those I work with affect me? . . . those I work for? . . . . In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on war and violence in our world.


Blessing









Closing Prayer




I I will praise you among the peoples, Lord; I will chant your praise among the nations. For your love towers to the heavens; your faithfulness, to the skies.

II Show yourself over the heavens, God; may your glory appear above all the earth.

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How terrible it will be for you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry out any of the wicked schemes you have power to accomplish. When you want a certain piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and vi-olence. No one’s family or inheritance is safe with you around!

But this is what the Lord says: “I will reward your evil with evil; you won’t be able to es-cape! After I am through with you, none of you will ever again walk proudly in the streets.”

In that day your enemies will make fun of you by singing this song of despair about your ex-perience: “We are finished, completely ruined! God has confiscated our land, taking it from us. He has given our fields to those who betrayed us.”

Others will set your boundaries then, and the Lord’s people will have no say in how the land is divided.

Don’t say such things,” the people say, “Don’t

Via Crucis

VIII—The women Abandoned

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate abandoned children, as well as those neglected in unstable homes.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Answer When I Call. (#18 in Glory & Praise, or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the prophet Micah (Micah 2: 1-10)

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Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the problem of abandoned and neglected children in our society and world.

Reflection


Via Crucis — VIII

prophesy like that. Such disasters will never come our way!”

Should you talk that way, O family of Israel? Will the Lord have patience with such behav-ior? If you would do what is right, you would find my words to be good. Yet to this very hour my people rise against me! You steal the shirts right off the backs of those who trusted

you, making them as ragged as men who have just come home from battle. You have evict-ed women from their homes and stripped their children of all their God-given rights. Up! Begone! This is no longer your land and home, for you have filled it with sin and ruined it completely.


The setting is a shanty-town. The shack, painted in caustic colors, is set under an unseen highway overpass, symbol of progress and wealth which, meant for the well-being of the few, bypasses the life of so many others.

The little girls have distinct expressions on their faces, from left to right: the bewilder-

ment of loneliness; the need for love simulta-neous with embarrassment and questioning; and the look of tears held back. Each little girl casts a shadow in a different direction as if each shadow were the product of a distinct source of light. Each girl will live out alone her unique unknown destiny.

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Hogar Corazonista Hermano Policarpo is a refuge for abandoned young people in Barran-quilla sponsored jointly by the Augustinian Recollect Sisters and our Colombian district. There Sister Luz Dary Cardona introduced me to Juan Carlos, José, and Víctor, three teen-agers of an insane mother. Before coming there five years ago, they had to tie up their mother during the day while they went out burglarizing the neighborhood for the family’s sustenance. I also met Leydis, a four-year-old girl who, because of the ignorance and neglect of her mother, has burned and severely deformed hands.

Alienation from parents is not limited to plac-es of poverty. With a divorce rate of nearly 50% and an illegitimacy average of around 30%, most children in the U.S. now come into the world with a handicap unprecedented in any culture at any period of human history: no stable family to speak of. What we have now are children growing up not only outside fami-lies, but children forced to grow up before they have had any real formation at all. As a result of this phenomenon, some young people in the first-world come to us more as refugees than as children.

Via Crucis — VIII

Prayer

Leader I take the place of abandoned or neglected young people. I speak their words to God. Psalm 17

I Hear, Lord, my plea for justice; pay heed to my cry; listen to my prayer spoken without guile.

II From you let my vindication come; your eyes see what is right.

I You have tested my heart, searched it in the night. You have tried me by fire, but find no malice in me.

II My mouth has not transgressed as humans often do. As your lips have instructed me, I have kept the way of the law.

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The hopelessness of children without parents is unspeakable in places of war. In 1994 an estimated 114,000 Rwandan children were separated from their families. In Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Croatia, as a deliberate tactic to demoralize communities and as a form of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ teenage girls were

raped and then made to bear ‘the enemy’s’ child.

In some raids in Rwanda, virtually every ad-olescent girl who survived the attack was sub-sequently raped. Many of them bore the chil-dren of rape, and many of those children were abandoned. (www.oneworld.org)

Via Crucis — VIII


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of abandoned and neglected children affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on abandoned and neglected children in our society and world.


Blessing









I My steps have kept to your paths; my feet have not faltered.

II I call upon you; answer me, O God. Turn your ear to me; hear my prayer.

I Show your wonderful love, you who deliver with your right arm those who seek refuge from their foes.

II Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings from the violence of the wicked.

I My ravenous enemies press upon me; they close their hearts, they fill their mouths with proud roaring.

II Their steps even now encircle me; they watch closely, keeping low to the ground, like lions eager for prey, ___

like young lions lurking in ambush.

I Rise, O Lord, confront and cast them down; rescue me so from the wicked.

II Slay them with your sword; with your hand, Lord, slay them; snatch them from the world in their prime.

I Their bellies are being filled with your friends; their children are satisfied too, for they share what is left with their young.

II I am just -- let me see your face; when I awake, let me be filled with your presence.

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Closing Prayer




Via Crucis — VIII

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Via Crucis

IX — Third fall Boys in Prison

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate those imprisoned unjustly — and those justly imprisoned who are nonetheless victimized.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, He Has Anointed Me. (#90 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Acts of the Apostles. (Acts 12: 1-11)

About that time King Herod laid hands upon some members of the church to harm them. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword, and when he saw that this was pleasing to the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (It was the feast of Unleavened Bread.) He had him taken into custody and put in prison under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. He intended to bring him before the people after Passover.

Peter thus was being kept in prison, but prayer by the church was fervently being made to God on his behalf. On the very night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter, secured

by double chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while outside the door guards kept watch on the prison.

Suddenly the angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and awakened him, saying, "Get up quickly." The chains fell from his wrists. The angel said to him, "Put on your belt and your sandals." He did so. Then he said to him, "Put on your cloak and follow me." So he followed him out, not realizing that what was happening through the angel was real; he thought he was seeing a vision.

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Second Reading



They passed the first guard, then the second, and came to the iron gate leading out to the city, which opened for them by itself. They emerged and made their way down an alley, and suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter recovered his senses and said, "Now I know

for certain that (the) Lord sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people had been expect-ing."


Beyond the dark wall and the iron bars, a warm light accentuates four boys of varying ages. Each one of them expresses a different interior response to his plight. Each has his own way of coping. From left to right: an appeal for help, despair, animosity, bravado.

The strong presence of light is meant to signify that there is always hope for these youngsters, who, despite the crimes they may have committed, are themselves being victim-ized. They are the first to suffer retribution on the human level. They are the ones most in need of love.

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Via Crucis — IX

Brother Rosaire Bergeron, volunteer minister until 1996 at Maroua prison in Cameroon, gives the following testimony: “Many young people are in Maroua prison despite having violated no laws. They are innocent. They have been falsely accused and offered to the court, who sentenced them in substitution for the sons of the rich, or of mil-itary officers, or of influential politicians. I know personally of three such cases. They are refused trial or counsel to prevent the truth from getting out. What’s remarkable is that the three I know have pardoned their tormentors. “For the smallest infractions, they are beat up or whipped. Sometimes they are suspended for hours upside down or chained to a high window frame in a dangerous or painful posi-tion in the burning sun where the others can see them, as a lesson. “The food is outright insufficient and unpalat-able: one lump of meal per day, as hard as a rock, with water. Health care is virtually non-

existent; there is no medicine. I have seen prisoners suffering from almost every possible illness: tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, consti-pation, wounds from being beaten, depression, malnutrition, aids, cold, flu, appendicitis, den-tal infections. … Crowded together 40, 80, 120 to a cell, they have only enough space to stretch out side by side on the cement. The terminally ill are abandoned; there’s no doctor to be seen. All but naked, chained, waiting to die. You have to see it to believe it.” Prospectus of André Coindre (1818) They are young prisoners who, after having been incarcerated for a more or less lengthy period, find that no one will give them work. Nevertheless, they are worthy of special concern. Guilty at an age when boys tend to be foolhardy rather than wicked, impetuous rather than incorrigible, it is vital that hope in their willingness to change not be lost. They must be afforded every possible help, and they must be isolated from exposure to criminal contagion.

Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the imprison- ment of young people in our society and world.

Reflection


Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of imprisoned and victimized youth. Psalm 82

I God presides over heaven’s court; He pronounces judgment on the judges: “How long will you judges hand down unjust decisions?

II “How long will you shower special favors on the wicked?

I “Give fair judgment to the poor ___

and the orphan;

uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute.

II “Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people.

I “But these oppressors know nothing; they are so ignorant!

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Via Crucis — IX

Via Crucis — IX


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of imprisoned and victimized youth affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on imprisoned and victimized youth in our society and world.


Blessing









Closing Prayer




II “And because they are in darkness, the whole world is shaken to the core.

I “I say, ‘You are gods and children of the Most High.

But in death you are mere men. ___

You will fall as any prince, for all must die.’”

II Rise up, O God, and judge the earth, for all the nations belong to you.

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Via Crucis

X — Stripped Innocence Abused

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the sexual exploitation of young people, especially by those they have a right to trust.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Lay Your Hands. (#131 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 18: 5-7; 10).


At that time the disciples approached Jesus and said, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a child over, placed it in their midst, and said, "Amen, I say to you, un-less you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoev-er humbles himself like this child is the great-est in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives one child such as this in my name re-ceives me.

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who

believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come! "See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.


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Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the sexual exploitation of young people, especially by those they are led to trust.

The setting is depraved. In the foreground a young girl looks out beyond the painting with feigned adult indifference, signifying that the world of childhood is no longer hers, for it has been stolen from her. The flowers in her hair symbolize lost innocence. Someone has taken her by the hand and led her against her will (her feet have been cropped out of the picture to suggest her loss of freedom, her inability to go her own way) in this gray world where there are no Technicolor dreams.

In the background, there is the sordid world of prostitution, made up of children and of wick-ed old men.

The setting suggests the Eastern world, where the prostitution of children is particularly rampant, but the image in the foreground was inspired from a photo of Brooke Shields as a child. This photo and others were the basis for a 1970 trial against the photographer Garry Gross which resulted in a campaign against the sexual exploitation of children.

Via Crucis — X

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Via Crucis — X

Reflection


In 1993 Pope John Paul II expressed “horror over the degrading practice of sex tourism.” The Senegal newspaper headlines upon my arrival there decried the number of European women tourists who come in search of teen-age boys who cruise the strips of beach hotels. Our international novitiate at Nianing is located along one such resort beach.

Sex customers, fearful of aids, are turning to younger and more innocent prey. As a result, the prostitution of children has skyrocketed worldwide in recent years. In Bogotá, the number of prostitutes under thirteen has quintupled since 1987. “A whole generation of young girls and boys is being turned into commerce by Westerners lured by govern-ments hungry for tourist dollars,” claims the international coordinator for a group called End Child Prostitution.

Most parents who hand their children over don’t understand what kind of “jobs” are being offered them. “At night, I sleep and cry. No one ever sees my tears,” says one 13-year

old.

Some girls feel so much pain that they block out the past and even forget their parents’ names, according to Sister Michele, who runs a therapy center for girl prostitutes. (El Colombiano, September 16, 1996; The World & I, Feb. 1995)

Sexual abuse of young people by trusted adults — relatives, teachers, brothers, and clergy — brings the hopelessness of sex abuse closer to home, as a recent report I read in a Rome newspaper shows: At 11, Carla’s par-ents confided her to a neighbor couple for after-school care. For a whole school year the husband subjected Carla to abuse, profiting from his wife’s frequent absence due to their handicapped daughter’s medical treatments. He began telephoning friends to join him and invited them to take their turn with her. Carla kept silent until she tried to throw herself off the balcony of her apartment. (Il Messaggero, July 7, 1996)

Prayer

Leader God, I have not forgotten you, but my thoughts are forced elsewhere. Friends, pray my prayer to God. Psalm 53

I Only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt and their actions are evil; No one does good!

II God looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if there is even one with real understanding, one who seeks for God.

I But no, all have turned away from God; all have become corrupt. No one does good, not even one!

II Will those who do evil never learn They eat up my people like bread; they wouldn’t think of praying to God.

I But then terror will grip them, terror like they have never known before. God will scatter the bones of your enemies.

II You will put them to shame, for God has rejected them.

I Oh, that salvation would come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel!

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Via Crucis — X


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of abused children affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on abused children in our society and world.


Blessing









Closing Prayer




II For when God restores his people, Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice.

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Via Crucis

XI — Nailed to the cross Drugs

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate the abuse of drugs and alcohol especially among the young people we serve.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Pardon Your People. (#187 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 18:10-14).


Second Reading


"See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heav-en always look upon the face of my heavenly Father. What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds

it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.


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Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the effects of drug use and addiction among the young people of the world, especially those with whom we work..

Via Crucis — XI

The setting is dark, secluded, and further hemmed in by a low-hanging ceiling with wooden beams; this element suggests the psychological oppression of the slavery of drug addiction.

In the half-light the protagonists are hardly identifiable, submerged into the shadows: drugs de-personalize, the users suffering the loss of their individuality.

Drug addiction is a social disease which strikes indiscriminately, both adults (in the

background) and children (in the foreground). What light there is comes from a window and from an electric bulb hanging from the ceil-ing: the logic of nature and the logic of the intellect shed their light in the room. That is to say they commandeer it and condemn the scene by casting long shadows reaching deep-ly into the twilight of death (symbolized by the dark cloth handing on the wall to the left) and into the chasm of violence (symbolized by the red cloth in the foreground).

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Via Crucis — XI

Reflection


I didn’t have to travel any farther than my office to be placed face-to-face with this station, which substitutes needles and syringes for the nails and thorns of Jesus’ crucifixion. The telephone call was from a colleague asking if I could cover her responsibilities because she had to attend the arraignment of her two sons, arrested during the night for trafficking in drugs. The older, 20, recruited the younger, 15, to transport the contraband. The police had set up a sting operation. They each ended up with a four-year prison sentence.

The schools of my province, like schools throughout North America, spend enormous resources and energy reacting to the reality of students caught in alarming nationwide trends of adolescent drug use. No effective means has been yet found to keep students drug-free, alcohol-free, tobacco-free. Civil authorities propose mandatory random drug screening. Schools set policies to help those students willing to be helped. Drug rehabilitation centers proliferate, but recidivism is high. Drug dealers, on the other hand, unscrupu-

lously keep exploiting the insecure adolescent with disposable cash.

Among the graduating class of 18-year olds in the U.S., more than half had used an illicit drug by the time they finished high school, continuing an upward trend from 40 percent in 1992. Half used marijuana at least once a year, up from 33 percent in 1992. For the same group, use of cocaine increased in one year from 7.1 percent to 8.7 percent, the highest rate reported since 1990. (cf. www.nida.nih.gov)

The most heartbreaking aspect of the adoles-cent drug plague is that, due to peer pressure, it recruits the very young through a sinister kind of initial formation. For twelve-year olds and younger, the use of inhalants, which in-clude glues, aerosols, and solvents, is often the first fascination. One in five take the first whiff before the 8th grade; then it is on to the other readily-available party and “boasting” drugs — alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana —before joining the ranks of more regular high school abusers.

Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of young people addicted to drugs. Psalm 55

I Listen, God, to my prayer; do not hide from my pleading; hear me and give answer.

II I rock with grief; I groan at the uproar of the enemy, the clamor of the wicked.

I They heap trouble upon me, savagely accuse me.

II My heart pounds within me; death's terrors fall upon me.

I Fear and trembling overwhelm me; shuddering sweeps over me.

II I say, "If only I had wings like a dove that I might fly away and find rest.

I Far away I would flee; I would stay in the desert..

II I would soon find a shelter from the raging wind and storm."

I Lord, check and confuse their scheming.

II I see violence and strife in the city making rounds on its walls day and night.

I Within are mischief and evil; treachery is there as well; ___

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Via Crucis — XI

oppression and fraud never leave its streets.

II If an enemy had reviled me, that I could bear; If my foe had viewed me with contempt; from that I could hide.

I But it was you, my other self, my comrade and friend, you, whose company I enjoyed, at whose side I walked in procession in the house of God.

II Let death take them by surprise; let them go down alive to Sheol, for evil is in their homes and hearts.

I But I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me.

II At dusk, dawn, and noon I will grieve and complain, and my prayer will be heard.

I God will give me freedom and peace from those who war against me, though there are many who oppose me.

II God, who sits enthroned forever, will hear me and humble them. For they will not mend their ways; they have no fear of God.

I They strike out at friends and go back on their promises.

II Softer than butter is their speech, but war is in their hearts.

I Smoother than oil are their words, but they are unsheathed swords.

II Cast your care upon the Lord, who will give you support.

I God will never allow the righteous to stumble.

II But you, God, will bring them down to the pit of destruction.

I These bloodthirsty liars will not live half their days, but I put my trust in you.


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of young people addicted to drugs affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on drug addiction in our society and world.


Blessing







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Via Crucis — XI



Closing Prayer




50

Via Crucis

XII — Death Execution

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate children recruited as soldiers, as well as violence in all its forms in our society and world.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Peace Prayer. (#191 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.)

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Luke (Luke 6: 27-38).

"But to you who hear I say, love your en-emies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

“For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to

you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repay-ment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount.

“But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

"Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be con-demned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.

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Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the violence in our own lives and that of our society, as well as violence in the lives of others in the world.

Via Crucis — XII

Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For

the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you."


The atmosphere is dark and anonymous, void of any furnishings: the tragedy of violence and death has no particular setting. Three individ-uals stand out from the darkness: the man with a weapon, wearing no uniform, no sign of al-legiance (violence has no single owner and no simple origin); the girl strung up by her hands; the dying man in the foreground.

The armed man looks out beyond the painting with an expressionless air of indifference: vio-lence disguised as normality can touch any of us and accomplish its ends with cruelty and

indifference.

Violence can come from others (the man hold-ing the weapon) or from us (the weapon strik-ing the victim seems to come from outside the painting, from the onlooker). But when it does strike, the victim feels the pain and utters a scream of terror (the man in the foreground). Violence ultimately harms the weak and the defenseless (the girl with bound hands whose battered body reveals a third manifestation of pain) who are often silent and without voice.

Reflection


The rector of Uganda’s Alokolum Major Sem-inary told this horrifying story in his Easter Sunday homily during my visit: Fifteen boys from a secondary school in the Gulu region were kidnapped by rebels and taken to their camp. One boy had the courage to escape but was soon caught. A commander convoked the other fourteen boys, putting the bound es-capee in the center of them. “Escaping puts all of our lives in danger.” He held out a bay-onet. “Here. Each of you will take a turn stabbing him until he is no longer moving.” The first boy to get the bayonet hesitated.

“Don’t refuse or you’ll be next.”

Students stabbing their classmate to bloody death is only one chapter in the nightmare of boy soldiers. After the Liberian peace agree-ment of 1995, a 15-year old “major,” a five-year veteran and commander of a fifty-member unit of soldiers younger than he, came forward. His unit’s job was to creep in-to enemy camps at night, cut off a few heads and retreat, planting their grisly booty at road-blocks. Still today, some 15,000 boy soldiers are counted in Liberia’s army. Their superiors

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Via Crucis — XII

supply them with an amphetamine known as “bubbles” to steel them for battle, and reward them with marijuana. (Time, Dec. 4, 1995)

Unicef estimates that 200,000 boys under 16 are fighting in 25 countries. Their number is increasing because light weapons now enable children to be proficient killers. An AK-47 can be stripped and reassembled by a ten-year-old. In some ways, children make better sol-diers than adults: they are easier to intimidate and they do as they are told; they are less like-ly to run away and they do not demand pay.

Girls face the added trauma of sexual abuse. One young girl in Uganda, Concy aged 14, had been abducted and told the following sto-

ry: “In Sudan we were distributed to men and I was given to a man who had just killed his woman. I was not given a gun, but I helped in the abductions and grabbing of food from vil-lages. Girls who refused to become rebels’ wives were killed in front of us to serve as a warning.”

A 15-year old girl who escaped wrote this message to Amnesty International: “Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don’t have to pass through this violence.” (www.amnesty.org.uk/childrights/soldier.htm)

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Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of boys and girls pressed into war.. Psalm 22

I My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? ___

Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of young people pressed into war affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on young people at war in our world.


Blessing






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Via Crucis — XII

II My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief.

I Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the glory of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted and you rescued them.

II To you they cried out and they escaped; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

I But I am a worm, hardly human, scorned by everyone, despised by the people.

II Do not stay far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help.

I Like water my life drains away; all my bones grow soft. My heart has become like wax, it melts away within me.

II As dry as a potsherd is my throat; my tongue sticks to my palate; you lay me in the dust of death.

I Many dogs surround me; a pack of evildoers closes in on me. So wasted are my hands and feet that I can count all my bones. They stare at me and gloat;

II But you, Lord, do not stay far off; my strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my forlorn life from the teeth of the dog.

I Save me from the lion's mouth, my poor life from the horns of wild bulls.

II Then I will proclaim your name to the assembly; in the community I will praise you:

I "You who fear the Lord, give praise! All descendants of Jacob, give honor; show reverence, all descendants of Israel.

II For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out.

I I will offer praise in the great assembly; my vows I will fulfill before those who fear him.




Closing Prayer




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Via Crucis — XII

Via Crucis

XIII — Removed from the cross Attempted suicide

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate young people attempting or actually committing suicide.

Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Why Have You Abandoned Me? (#265 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 27: 45-50)


Second Reading


From noon onward, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o'clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Some of the bystanders who heard it said, "This one is calling for Elijah." Immediately one of them ran to get a sponge; he soaked it in

wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink.

But the rest said, "Wait, let us see if Elijah comes to save him."

But Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, and gave up his spirit.


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Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and what might bring a young people to attempt suicide.

Via Crucis — XIII

57

A young girl lies on a bed. On the floor can be seen a note she has written: “I did not want o kill myself, but the life I was leading…”

Another evidence of suicide is the empty bottle of pills on the night-table. But parallel to this tragic act is evidence of her desire not to die; the telephone off the hook suggests her cry for help. The setting is that of the com-fortable middle-class: silk sheets, expensive

furniture, carpets, stuffed animals. Alongside the cuddly toys which are symbols of an un-finished childhood, the alcohol indicates her desire for adulthood, a conflict that is very much a part of growing up.

On the wall there is a mirror in which appears the image of a young girl who symbolizes the call to life.

Reflection


The doorbell rang as the three of us were finishing the dinner that Brothers Joseph and

Gabriel had cooked for my visit. We had been talking about their option to live here at La

Via Crucis — XIII

Prayer

Leader We give voice to the prayer of young people contemplating or attempting suicide. Isaiah 38: 10-20

I Once I said, "In the noontime of life I must depart! To the gates of the nether world I shall be consigned for the rest of my years."

II I said, "I shall see the Lord no more in the land of the living. No longer shall I behold my fellow men among those who dwell in the world."

I My dwelling, like a shepherd's tent, is struck down and borne away from me. You have folded up my life, like a weaver who severs the last thread.

II Day and night you give me over to torment; I cry out until the dawn.

I Like a lion he breaks all my bones; day and night you give me over to torment.

II Like a swallow I utter shrill cries; ___

I moan like a dove.

I My eyes grow weak, gazing heavenward: O Lord, I am in straits; be my surety!

II What am I to say or tell him? He has done it! I shall go on through all my years despite the bitterness of my soul.

I Those live whom the Lord protects; yours. . . the life of my spirit.

II You have given me health and life; thus is my bitterness transformed into peace.

I You have preserved my life from the pit of destruction, when you cast behind your back all my sins.

II For it is not the nether world that gives you thanks, nor death that praises you; ___

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Sauvegarde (“Lifeline”) in an immense public housing project in Lyon. The visitor, a young man in his twenties, had obviously come by often before. The brothers teased him as he took his place at the table. Within a few minutes he began asking them if they wanted his music tapes and the cash he had at home because he was planning to kill himself.

Isabel Cristina had tried to commit suicide twice when I met her at Hogar Hermano Policarpo at the age of eleven. She had run away several times from her house in Medel-lín because her father had forced her to sell drugs with an addict and with her 15-year old brother, who was later killed. “I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to kill the life I was leading,” explained a Que-bec youth after her failed suicide attempt. In Quebec province, suicides between the ages of

15 and 24 have been mounting at an alarming rate, now an average of 344 per year, nearly one per day! Many adolescents who attempt suicide give as a principal cause the silence or coldness of their father. Others say they have no sense of belonging among peers. A third reason is pressure to perform in school. One Montreal religious education teacher, Richard Labelle, reports: “I broke up a suicide pact. It was an excellent student, really a genius, who was making the final prepara-tions. Those kids were trying to earn love by their academic performance, but everybody around them began taking their excellent re-sults for granted. So, they were left in an emotional void. The futility led them to want to end it all.” (L’Oratoire, May 1996)

neither do those who go down into the pit await your kindness.

I The living, the living give you thanks, as I do today. Fathers declare to their sons, O God, your faithfulness.

II The Lord is our savior; we shall sing to stringed instruments in the house of the Lord all the days of our life.


Sharing

Leader How does the plight of young people’s contemplation of suicide affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on suicide among young people in our society and world.


Blessing









Closing Prayer




Via Crucis — XIII

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Via Crucis

XIV — Buried Lamentation

Opening Prayer


(Pause)

Leader Friends, we gather as the People of God, as the Body of Christ. Let us recall that we are the hands and feet the eyes and ears of Christ for his beloved people. May we be aware of this high calling now and be open to God’s words within and among us as we contemplate young people victimized by war.


Opening Song

Leader Listen, or join in, our opening song, Pieta. (#193 in Glory & Praise or choose some other appropriate song.

First Reading

Reader A reading from the Gospel of Mark (Mark 15:42-16:8).

When it was already evening, since it was the day of preparation, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a distinguished member of the council, who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, came and courageously went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.

Pilate was amazed that he was already dead. He summoned the centurion and asked him if Jesus had already died. And when he learned of it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.

Having bought a linen cloth, he took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the

rock. Then he rolled a stone against the en-trance to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus watched where he was laid.

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint him.

Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back; it was very

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Second Reading



Contemplation

Leader Let us pause as we contemplate Alberto Bertuzzi's painting and the plight of children victimized by war.

large. On entering the tomb they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white robe, and they were utterly amazed.

He said to them, "Do not be amazed! You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Behold the place where they laid him. But go and tell his disci-ples and Peter, 'He is going before you to Gal-

ilee; there you will see him, as he told you.'"

Then they went out and fled from the tomb, seized with trembling and bewilderment. They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.


There is no distinct setting or background be-cause human suffering and death can only be represented by darkness and void.

On the left, there are men in non-descript mili-tary uniforms in an attitude of sadness. Their faces are turned toward a coffin; war, no par-ticular war, but war in general, must mourn its dead. The pain of the soldiers reveals their human side of brotherhood and compassion. In the foreground, a child lies in a small white coffin.

The foreground and the background are sepa-rated by a curtain which segregates the

soldiers from their civilian victims. But simultaneously this red curtain (violence) links the two realities: suffering and death are elements which involve all human beings. The little group of three civilians on the right highlights this idea, for the hand of the mother stretched across the curtain is a gesture of desperation at the loss of her child.

Among the group of soldiers, one face looks up enigmatically toward the onlookers, silently inviting them to enter into the scene and to place themselves in this mystery of suffering and death.

Reflection


I realized quickly in traveling through the institute that war and its cousin terrorism are never far from our establishments. Through-out Colombia, in the province of Casamance in Senegal and the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, the capital of Lesotho, the isle of

Yule in Papua New Guinea, and in Uganda violent attacks have been a menace in recent years. Unicef reported in 1994 that 42 countries were involved in wars and another 37 in serious political conflicts. Because of the complex international alliances involved,

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commentators are beginning to refer to the ongoing reprisals in the Great Lakes region as the “First World War of Africa.”

The brothers taught me an African proverb: “When elephants fight, it’s the grass that gets crushed.” Its truth is borne out by statistics on the evolution of war making. In World War I, loss of civilian life was less than 10% of total deaths. In World War II, it was 50%. Since then, wars have killed more civilians than sol-diers. The losses in Vietnam were 80% civilian. In Lebanon, Cambodia, Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, and Chechnya, civilian tombs account for 90% of the total.

The greatest suffering wars cause is to the poorest population, and among the poorest, to the youngest. Over a typical year in the

1990’s, 34 African countries taken together saw the birth of 17 million babies, but war martyred 4 million of them before they reached the age of 5. In some wars, children were made intentional targets. The following instruction was given by a Rwandan com-mander repeatedly over radio waves in 1993: “To get rid of the big rats, you have to kill the little rats.” Some Latin American groups have made a specialty of the torture and liquidation of children to terrorize villages.

Over the last 15 years, according to a report given to the general assembly of the UN by Graça Machel, widow of the former president of Mozambique, one of every two victims of war was a child! (Les Enfants Esclaves, Martin Monestier, pp. 164-168)

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Sharing

Leader How does the plight of young people victimized by war affect me? . . . my ministry? . . . those I work with? In response, we express our own prayer. You are invited to share with the group your thoughts and reflections on young people victimized by war in our world.


Blessing



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Prayer

Leader Friends, all my thoughts are on my troubles. Stand in my place, and pray my prayer to God. Psalm 88

I O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out to you day and night.

II Now hear my prayer; listen to my cry. For my life is full of troubles, and death draws near.

I I have been dismissed as one who is dead, like a strong man with no strength left.

II They have abandoned me to death, and I am as good as dead. I am forgotten, cut off from your care.

I You have thrust me down to the lowest pit, into the darkest depths.

II Your anger lies heavy on me; wave after wave engulfs me.

I You have caused my friends to loathe me; you have sent them all away. I am in a trap with no way to escape. My eyes are blinded by my tears.

II Each day I beg for your help, O Lord; ___

I lift my pleading hands to you for mercy. Of what use to the dead are your miracles? Do the dead get up and praise you?

I Can those in the grave declare your unfailing love? In the place of destruction, can they proclaim your faithfulness?

II Can the darkness speak of your miracles? Can anyone in the land of forgetfulness talk about your righteousness?

I O Lord, I cry out to you. I will keep on pleading day by day.

II O Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you turn your face away from me? I have been sickly and close to death since my youth.

I I stand helpless and desperate before your terrors. Your fierce anger has overwhelmed me. Your terrors have cut me off.

II They have encircled me completely. You have taken away my companions and loved ones; only darkness remains.







Closing Prayer




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