Last Sunday, we entered into the last fortnight of the Catholic liturgical year. We have relived, for 50 weeks, the story of our salvation, for the purpose of releasing its power, concretely, into the days of 2004. With only a handful of days left before the grand finale, the proclamation of Christ as Victor over all the forces of the shadow world, which would destroy life and love, we find a big surprise. We enter this fortnight, just about at the end of our journey, with troubling words from Christ. We are told of darkness and trials, of great battles, of such destruction that not one stone will be left on another…not even in the Temple. What happened? I thought He won?

He did. But He won only to make our winning possible. Christ’s victory did not exempt us from the battle. To the contrary, from the minute we are born until the second we die, we are intimate participants in the drama between good and evil, between life and death, and our choices make all the difference in the world. We constantly relive our liturgical year for the empowerment of remembrance, so that our choices are influenced by the very heart of God. “I set before you good and bad, life and death. Choose life!”

There is nothing imaginary about the apocalypse, the dramatic and showy display of chaos. On November 2nd, we gathered outside of Port-au-Prince, as we always do, at the killing fields and common grave of the untold number of nameless poor, who died during 2004. Too poor even to be buried. Their bones, strewn about, speak of apocalypse. They are dumped there without dignity, without tenderness, without hope of another life. We gather there to repair the damage done to them: we proclaim their dignity, at that place, by celebrating for them the exalted rite of the Mass. Many of them, when sick, were under our care.We remember their lives with tenderness, we commend them to God with the hope of salvation. This is what I mean when I say that our liturgical year empowers us to make grace present, concretely, in our world.

It is not a coincidence that the Church asks us, in November, not only to reflect on the Last Days, but to offer concrete acts of charity for the dead. Prayers, fasting, graveside visits. Just as the suffering of Christ made salvation possible for us, in a mysterious way our efforts and sufferings can help other people find theirs. We are encouraged to offer our works, our trials, our sufferings to God in union with those of Christ so they might be redemptive. Our Church offers us the intuition that many of the dead still need our solidarity in order to find their deliverance. (Our Pope has been asking repeatedly, in recent years, for people to pray for him after his death.) For the dead, it is literally true that not one stone is left on another. The dead have lost everything in the world as we know it.

Nor can our charity for the dead stop with spiritual works of charity. We have to work so that no one is ever thrown in a mass grave again. Everyone should be buried with dignity, tenderness and hope. This a most worthy human goal. We have overwhelming numbers of destitute dead. We see the death of 250 children a year at our own hospital, not to mention at all the other places where we work. A team of young adults who have grown up in our orphanage have formed a “ministry of the Resurrection”. One by one they are starting to bury our dead. They make the coffin, they dig the grave, they bring the family to the rented ground for burial and prayer (yes, rented graves, until we can afford to buy a cemetery). It makes all the difference in the world to the family, as you can imagine. A simple act that gives them a psychological and spiritual rock to stand on, in the face of the death of their child. This is grace taking hold, concretely, in the days of 2004.

There is nothing imaginary about the apocalypse. We see beheaded corpses in Port au Prince. I read recently in the New York Times that this barbaric act is making a comeback not only in Iraq and Haiti but in any number of countries around the world.

Twice during the past month our medical team had to drive into violent areas at night, to bring out the sick and wounded in order to save their lives. Both times, it was bad people who made sure that we got in and out without our truck being burned, or smashed, or worse. It is amazing how many bad people still have an instinct for good, and if given a chance, participate in goodness. Human history is full of stories of people whose destructive behavior comes from being convinced by others, often by their own leaders, that their warrior behavior is for a noble cause. A lot of the bad people are children. Completely misguided and manipulated children. How important it is to put good and right ideas in their head, to use their minds instead of wasting them. A number of young adults who grew up in our orphanage are forming clusters of little schools to get these kids off the street, away from bad influences, and into the human family. One group is called “Companions of St. Gabriel”. Another, “Companions of St Anne.” And so on. So far they have organized schools for 400 street children. Our goal is to have 1000 street children in schools by the end of the new year of grace, 2005. When bad people follow good instincts, and are encouraged to do so, grace is breaking in on apocalypse. Then one sees clearly that it is not so much that a bad person was converted to goodness, but rather that the person whose goodness was perverted is back on the right track. Grace is really something. And how proud we are that our huge home and school for orphan children, now running for 17 years, has produced young people who are trying to renew the face the earth.

There is nothing imaginary about the apocalypse. Violence and natural disasters are seeing to it that not a stone is left standing on another in many places in the Middle East, in parts of the flood areas of Gonnaives and Thiote, in Afganistan and Falluja. Even the natural disasters, in many cases, are caused by such violence toward the earth as deforestation and destruction of natural habitat. Someone just mailed me a load of seeds to plant in Gonnaives. Grace insists on breaking in on apocalypse.

Speaking of Gonnaives, we have received three children from there. Moses is 8 months old, and was found miraculously alive floating in the water, by UN soldiers. His family is presumed dead. We call him Moses because his name, like that of his famous namesake, means in Hebrew “drawn out from the waters”. He is chubby and beautiful. Then there is Guenson. I guess he’s about 10. His last memory of his family is his grandmother putting him safely in the branches of a tree, and then watching her disappear with the waters. Then there is Vilina. She was the most traumatized from the loss of her whole family, but she is starting to come out of herself thanks, to Sister Loraine and our hospital staff. The three of them are witnesses to the incredible resilience of spirit, which we celebrate throughout our liturgical year.

And where not one stone was left upon another, we have been putting one stone upon another again. We have rebuilt homes for 25 families in Thiote. One of the young men who grew up in our orphanage oversaw this whole project. And this week we are finalizing the details to help 40 families in Gonnaives have a home again. If our faith is not concrete and practical, it is, as St Paul says, thoroughly lifeless.

Forgive the personal note, but it has an important message. Since last February, we have had a major revolution and two disastrous floods. And since August I have had both malaria and dengue fever. You can imagine that even someone people considered strong, and who usually feels very strong, also has his limits. The dengue put me flat on a mat on the floor, depressed and exhausted, covered with rash and wet with fevers. Dengue is known for causing depression. Then again, so is life. The floor helped me a lot because it was cool against the fevers. And the hardness of the floor protected my aching bones from sudden movements. To make it worse, while on my sick bed, I got three pieces of terrible news. A friend, Ti Maurice, was dying in his hovel in Cite Soleil and wanted me to go see him, which was impossible. Then news came that one of the young men teaching our street children, was killed brutally in the gunfire of port au Prince. This was followed by the news that Daniel, the subject of a previous letter of mine, had died. Daniel had suffered disfiguring acid burns on his head and face from a witch doctor who had used the acid to try to exorcise him during an epileptic seizure. In any case, the pathetic Daniel died in a gutter in Port au Prince.

Of all the chaos wrought by Apocalypse, chaos of the spirit is the worse. That awful feeling that not one stone is standing on another inside of yourself. I wondered as I lay on the floor if there was anything about life even worth getting up for, even if I could get up. That is a sickness. I knew it was self pity to think that way. I knew I was no where near as sick as my hundreds of patients, and my life no where near as dire as theirs. But the cure came to me. So many people came to see me, standing at the foot of my mat, so obviously sad that I was sick. And I voiced to some of them my inner thoughts, and I heard from some good advice, and from others kind words, and from others still some chiding, and from some very strange ideas indeed…but from all of them I heard, very clearly, love. Our community heals us. I am fine again, and I feel strong, thanks to love.

I was told later by a friend that it was revealed to her in prayer that my illness was not just about a mosquito. The suffering I went through, on a deeper level, was helpful for Daniel’s final deliverance after his tormented ending. I don’t know if it is true. I do know our Church teaches that our suffering can be redemptive. I also know that if it is true, I would gladly have lain on that mat for a year for Daniel, if it could have repaired any of the damage that chaos had inflicted on him.

And so our liturgical year is about to end. It’s time to “gird up our loins” and face the hard truth about life, armed with the gospel. No need to fear. The whole year starts again on the first Sunday of Advent. We will hear the sweet announcement that God is coming to us, into our reality, into our flesh. And then we will have 52 weeks to relive the story and release its power, and we will have a chance to do this again and again and again, until we get it right. Nothing to fear. The power is in us, all of us. Big or small, smart or slow, rich or poor, sick or well. The power is in all of us. It’s in our hearts. It’s called love.

Fr Rick Frechette CP