The below is a powerful Christmas message from Fr. Rick Frechette, National
Director, NPH Haiti
Only two
weeks ago, on a cold and wet night, at this time of the year when the darkness
of solstice heralds the birth of the Savior, a mother with nowhere to go,
hovered timidly near our gate.
The night was
pregnant with both danger and destiny, as was the night when Jesus was born. We
ourselves were as unaware of what was happening, as was the world of 2000 years
ago. In the darkness and quiet of night, God shapes the life of a new day, and
God’s instruments are dreams, inspirations, intuitions, deep rest, and silent
growth as we sleep.
In vain is
your earlier rising, you’re going later to rest, you who toil for the bread you
eat, when he pours gifts on his beloved while they slumber (Ps 127:2).
But the
shadows of night can also torment the weak and innocent, and lead one down dark
paths of despair and destruction. The young mother at our gate was confused,
weak and innocent, and in danger.
She was only
a teenager. Her pregnancy was a scandal. She didn’t know where to go. There was
no room for her at any Inn.
Her story
was, once again, the story of Mary, lived out so many times throughout history.
It wasn’t a
jealous king that didn’t want her child to live: it was her father and her
boyfriend. It wasn’t by the teeth of the dragon of Revelations, nor the sword
that brutalized the holy innocents, that her child was to die, but by the
instruments of abortion.
This is what
was ordered for her by the men in her life, and this is what she fearfully
promised to do.
It is also
why she hid from them for these last few months, until she quietly had her baby.
She could not
end the life of her child. She was sure she could find a way for her child to
live. Now the baby was born, but found no welcome in the world. For this woman
to reclaim her own place in the world, it must be without her little girl.
She hovered
by our gate, as the mother of Moses had hovered over the basket holding her
son, in the river.
She watched
for who and how and when her baby might be saved, as Moses mother had kept her
eyes downstream, on the daughter of the king, bathing in the river. She chose
carefully the moment when to release the basket, letting the river carry Moses
to new life.
It was
different for the mother at our gate. Her choices were poor, with grave error
in her calculations.
She had not
considered the time between her leaving the tiny child in the brush, and us
finding the child at sunrise. She had not considered that the cold and the rain
would drain all the heat from her baby. She had not considered the ants. The
fire ants. The terrible fire ants.
And so the
sunrise brought not the joy and promise of new life wrought by God during the
night, but rather agony and death.
As Moses
mother had later offered herself to the king’s court as a wet nurse for her own
son, so this young mother returned later in the morning to discretely take news
of her baby.
The news was
terrible. The child was dead. There was lamenting and wailing in the street.
“A voice was
heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matt 2:18).
This story
tormented me for days. I was a witness to the short life and sufferings of this
baby, whose life we tried impossibly to save.
I am sure
this story torments you. Our sadness would be multiplied if we knew how often
this happens, if we knew how tough the world still is for young women of
poverty and their children.
The birth of
Christ is not a story oblivious to suffering and danger. Christ was born into
this suffering, as light in the midst of suffering. At first His light was a
tiny infant light, which God augmented and multiplied by a dancing star and
legions of angels.
In time, his
light would grow, as He grew in wisdom and grace. The darkness also grew
darker, and the cold grew colder, but his light would become deep and
invincible.
Let us thank
God together that this is the heritage given us by the Christ Child. We are the
bearers of light, holding high the bright lights of faith, of hope, of love.
This is our
heritage, that by each of us offering our light, we have made the darkness of
night as luminous as the Milky Way.
And even
more, when we ask God to bless the light we all hold up together, God augments
and multiplies our light, until even the darkness is radiant.
“even the
darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for
darkness is as light to you, and the darkness is radiant in your sight” (Ps
139:12).
Let’s thank God together that for 60
years, we at Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos have built homes with this marvelous
light, that we have been a beacon of hope for children in sorrow, distress and
illness, and a safe haven for countless children over these decades, and their
way to a stronger and happier future. Our homes are as needed today as they
ever have been in our history.
But let’s
also not let our guard down. While the vast majority of the children who come
to us for help do not suffer tragedy at our very gate, as did the baby girl of
whom I write, the forces of darkness and destruction are not at all far from
the doors of our homes.
With prayers
for struggling mothers and anguished children all around the world at
Christmas, let us hold our lights high and together, as one light, begging for
and counting on God’s blessing, as we always have.
Thank you for
being light for the children of Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos! Wishing you a
very Merry Christmas and every blessing in the new year of grace, 2015.
.JPG)
.JPG)
