The Tiny Mustard Seed, and the Ferocious Gates of Hell
March 20, 2005
As a priest, I think I know a little bit about heaven and hell. As a doctor, I think I know a little bit about life and death. But certainly this past season of winter, which ends today, taught me a lot more than I knew about any of them, especially about hell. I am glad to see winter end, and it’s not because I am sick of snow.
I suppose it isn’t surprising that the dead of winter would teach us about death. It also isn’t surprising that the cold and darkness of winter would teach us about hell. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, hell is presented as a frozen darkness, devoid of flame and heat. Fire is too representative of wisdom, of warmth and Spirit, to find a place in hell.
For those of us who live in the northern half of the world, winter begins on December 21st, with what we call the solstice. Solstice literally means the sun stands still. It stands still as far away from us as it will ever get, leaving us with the days of the least light. The sun stands still in order to turn around and, thankfully, start coming back toward us. If it didn’t, if it continued its journey away from us, the whole planet and every living creature on it, would perish in frozen darkness in a very short time. Yes, thank God the sun stops, and considers us, and returns to us. At the same time as it is turning, the Christian Church celebrates the great feast of Christmas. This is not a coincidence. Christ, the true light of the world, begins a journey toward us that will save from perishing in the frozen darkness of sin. His considering us, his turning toward us, will save us from hell. Nature teaches us clearly about grace, the sun teaches us about the Son.
In the beginning of the Bible, we see that creation is God’s deliberate act of controlling chaos by setting forceful boundaries. Boundaries between light and darkness, between land and water, between what is good and what is evil. Unbelievable horrors, like Tsunami and Shoah, show us what is at stake when boundaries disappear. Hell is in the business of trying to destroy all boundaries. And resisting hell is about fighting to restore them.
One of our deceased priests, who was a bit of a character, would give out his business card liberally. It said:
Fr Camillus Barth, CP.
Working to beat hell!
When I was young, this thought made me chuckle. Today, it makes me shudder.
As solstice approached, so did the gates of hell. My work takes place with people very much disgraced by abject poverty and brutal violence. It doesn’t often seem like there is a whole lot of light around. The light is surely not in the crushing reality in which the people are born and die. But it is in their eyes and hearts, and it glows in ways that give tremendous witness to God’s reign.
At solstice, Joseph Dorvil made the bad mistake of wanting to cut 45 minutes off a trip to see his family, by driving through an area of Port au Prince well known to me and my roaming medical team, called “new road”. There he met his death in a savage way. More savage still, his body was left in his car to rot. Neither police nor UN soldiers would go to the area. Joseph was a graduate of the famous American University of Notre Dame. He was working at a mission hospital in Haiti, to try to eradicate a dreaded mosquito born disease. He was looking forward to Christmas for many reasons, one of which was that it coincided with his first anniversary of marriage to his wife Cathy. But all that changed at solstice, at new road, at the time of least light. Instead, his unclaimed body rotted in the turning, tropical sun.
I did not know Joseph, but a friend from the States who knew his wife called me four days after the killing, to ask me if I could get the body. And so I had to go up against the gates of hell. I could never describe what was involved in this. His body had already been taken by his killers and dumped in the scrublands, where it was being eaten by animals. And so I had to deal with people who are like rats, like people that have given up their souls, to try to get his body back for his desperate wife, so she could cherish and honor her husband with a Christian burial. Daily phone calls back and forth with her, as I kept trying…. so many obstacles and dangers. Christmas and their anniversary drew near. At one point, Cathy said she could not have a better Christmas present that to have the body of her husband brought home. Imagine this! Imagine how desperate life can be. I also became desperate, in wanting to help Cathy in mercy’s name. My dealings with these people continued: these killers who stash the bodies of their victims in desolate ravines, stripping them of clothes that might have any value, tunneling their way through these desolate areas of corpses. These were my “dialogue partners.” These were the people to whom I had to try to introduce the concept of mercy. They wanted money for the corpse, ransom even for a dead body. And they ripped us off of the part of the ransom we paid.
As I tried through many ways to get Josephs body, my work with the destitute sick continued. One morning, as I had a prayer with about a hundred people who came to me for help, I prayed for Cathy and for the return of Joseph’s body. These people, so sick from tuberculosis and AIDS, asked me about Joseph and Cathy and were heartsick to hear of the tragedy. They asked if I could get a picture of Joseph. They wanted to go into the ravines and look for him themselves. They could not imagine Cathy’s suffering. And they would not tolerate it, without trying to help. I made a quick phone call, and asked someone to download Joseph’s photo from the Notre Dame website, and to make 50 copies of it. In a half an hour, I had those pictures. It was the first time I saw the face of the man I was looking for so passionately.
Then, before my eyes, these very sick people formed lines and made a plan as to how to cover the ravines. An army of half dead people was heading off to try to right the wrong, the terrible wrong, of a grieving widow and an unburied corpse. You should have seen them, off to do battle against hell itself- thin as rails, struggling to breath, holding themselves on sticks they use for crutches. My eyes watered as I said to God, are these really the only people you have to do battle against hell? Are these really the people? And I heard an answer deep in my heart. “Yes, these ARE the people. They are exactly the people. These blessed, beautiful people.” Before the size of their task, they appear to be as small as mustard seeds. But fueled by mercy and compassion, they would spend whatever life was left in them, to move mountains for mercy’s sake.
We never did recover Joseph’s body, but we did our absolute best to do so. And our best was a defiance against hell. Our best used mercy to protest savageness. Our best declared in the face of evil that there is a God-given order to life, and that sacred boundaries must never be violated. Our best showed that mercy has no fear, that love is stronger than death, and there are many people who will give the last ounce of their strength to try to even partially right a wrong.
There were three other incidents, equally as horrible, that marked out the winter months. It would be as hard to me to write about them as it would be for you to read about them. But they all show the same truth: in the face of the arrogant and horrible display of hell, there appears a powerful force of good capable of defying it, and often this goodness is in a seemingly very feeble form. That force of goodness has made its home in you and I.
This is the best of all weeks to meditate on these truths. Holy Week starts today. This is the week when a most brutal death will be delivered to the most noble person ever born. This is the week when Christ will enter into direct conflict with the forces of evil, even descending into hell after being ravaged by it. This is the week when, in the face of evil, the force of goodness will seem very feeble…..at least until the end, when it is radiant and eternal. But this is also the week when the sun crosses our threshold again, marking the springtime and the return to life, with a beautiful display of light. This, also, is no coincidence.
We are asked to relive these mysteries during this week. They are as real today as they were two millennia ago. Evil is still evil, but goodness is still so, so good! May God keep mercy and goodness alive in our hearts, and increase our engagement to stand with our brothers and sisters around the world who know the brutal blows of life. But may we all know the blessings and joys of Easter.
Fr Rick Frechette CP