The Presentation of the Lord….and the Art of Un-Kidnapping
(A Celebration of Light)
Nearly a week ago, we were working in a tiny shack, dark and hot, doing our best to take care of very sick poor people in Cite Soleil. It is not easy, trying to make the most of the few scattered stands of light, available through the bullet holes in the tin roof. Out on the street, I suddenly saw a crowd of children, a whole lot of them, walking and giggling. What a nice sound it was! I went out for a breath of air, and to see what they were doing. In the middle of the throng were two veiled heads. Two nuns from Spain, who work in this shell-shocked slum, were walking along and talking to these many children as they went to visit the sick. I went to say hello to them. Sister Marta raised her head and looked at me with her piercing green eyes. “We have to pray hard, mon pere. We live now in total darkness.” I said, “Yes, Sister. But you are giving a beautiful light to these children, and they are shining with their own little flames.”
The light that comes from Christ is always beautiful and always new, and graces any setting- even the tragic settings of absolute poverty.
Two prophets mark today’s feast - Simeon and Ann. Ann’s prophesies are not in recorded memory, but Simeon speaks of the light of Christ, a light for the nations, which will give long awaited peace. This is the Christ who came to ransom us while we were still slaves, to lead us from the prison of darkness into the freedom of the children of light. I had never before considered that the whole Christian religion is centered around the idea of ransom- a price paid by Christ our Light to set us free from darkness. Yes, a price was paid for our freedom, for our salvation. St Paul says outright that we were bought, with the price of Christ’s blood. This is a brilliant and vibrant image, when you find yourself pricing and buying back captive people, when applying all you forces and skills to set them free from the hands that imprison them.
My team and I have not gone into this challenge by choice, this “ministry of un-kidnapping.” But we are in it- at least sometimes. In fact, as soon as I would finish seeing the sick people filling these nooks and crannies, for the seventeenth time in very few months our task would be to try to liberate someone else from the sinister industry of trafficking in human beings. The fact that this time it was an 85 year old French nun (and her three companions), made swift success all the more urgent. They had already been captive for a few days.
I recently visited a highly controversial Haitian priest in prison. He is sick with leukemia, and we spoke of many things, including his own circumstances and illness. I learned that the major criminal charge against him is “association with evil doers.” It made me pause. My team and I also associate with “evil doers”, all the time. But, obviously, never to help them do evil. To the contrary, to try to influence them to do good. These “evil doers” were once again the very people that I needed, to free the elderly Sister.
As was the case once again, I have never known the people we were trying to free. Once it was a young missionary priest from Czech Republic named Roman. Another time a young businessman from India named Jerome. Now there was Sister Agnes and her companions from France. But I did not know them. They were just names. Each time, I had been asked by a consulate, a chancery, or by a grieving brother or friend, to use my association with “evildoers” to try to do something good. I have never been called by kidnappers themselves who, announcing their catch, then ask what we will pay. In fact, the kidnappers always lose money when I get involved. So do I.
A few times we did not pay any ransom. I was enough of a wordsmith, and there were enough angels around, to wedge open the door to freedom. Sometimes I have paid very little-in fact a pittance. “We would like to give them to you for free, mon pere. We won’t charge for our part. But we still have to pay the ones who caught them, the ones who delivered them, the one whose house they are staying in, the one who makes them food, the one who makes sure they don’t get away.” It is easy to see that this is a whole industry, a perverted hotel industry involving captured guests.
Sometimes I have paid bigger money, but still not so big. And I mean no where near the asking price. I settled early on a philosophy. Christ did not ask that the price he paid to free us be returned to him. Nor would I. My involvements in setting captives free would be a dead loss. A lifesaving dead loss.
But I am also smart politically. If I don’t accept any money for the ransom I have paid, when a ransom of some sort is necessary, I can never be accused by either side of having made a profit in these dealings. And hopefully, I will never be a priest in a Haitian prison with the charge “kidnapping, and association with evil doers.”
But to be truthful, setting the unknown captive free is delicate work. Its not just about paying. That’s the easiest part. Finding them is a challenge. The negotiation is full of red flags. You run the danger of being distrusted from all sides. The interpretation by others of your involvement is far from benign. You find yourself in violent areas, sometimes in the night, sometimes with a good bit of money in your pocket. It’s all part of it. But then the captives are brought to you, their feet shuffling and stumbling along in the dark, your truck ready to take them swiftly to the freedom and protection for their embassy. You hear them shuffling along dark alleyways toward you. Then they are safe in your truck, and they are free.
And many times at the moment of their release, there is another manifestation of light. I remember Fr. Roman spoke mostly of how moved he was by the poverty of his captors, and a great pity for what their lives are like. The light of compassion shone brightly in him. Jerome spoke of some bonds of closeness with others who were held with him. The light of solidarity shone brightly in him. But Sister Agnes! Now there is a high spirited woman! As I helped her into the truck to whisk her off to the French embassy, she said to me, “At my age, about the only thing missing from my Curriculum Vitae was being kidnapped!” The light of humor shone brightly in her. These lights rend Satan and his legions completely impotent. Because of these lights, the ordeal of these people cannot ravage their souls.
There are other lights as well. All the “hotel” personnel walked Sister to the truck. The warm embraces were mutual. It was as if they were seeing their grandmother off. One even said, “I hope you come again!” What a strange world.
It is a dirty business, kidnapping. But it is done by human beings, all of whom, like us, alternate in allegiance to light and to darkness. God said, “I set before you light and darkness, life and death. Choose life.” I have always believed that people’s choices can be altered with the right influence, if they see by the right kind of light. Sometime you and I can be that light.
I know that paying ransom perpetuates this dirty business. But do you leave grandmother in chains to make a point? Did Christ decide against freeing us when He knew that, even after paying the highest price, we would be taken by sin over and over and over again?
It is important to analyze the causes of kidnapping. It was once expressed as a political payback: you kidnapped our president, now we will kidnap you. But now it is a high yield business in a country of massive unemployment where most people live on less than a dollar a day. Until the causes are addressed, the debates on whether or not to pay ransom will always be predictable: it will be easy to hold the opinion ransom should never be paid, until someone you love is suddenly gone.
Christ our light, help us to see clearly. Christ our Light, help us to decide rightly. Lighten the dark and tangled ways that make up our life’s journey.
Give us hearts eager to be led by the kindly light of love, and the peace prophesied by your servant Simeon.
Fr Richard Frechette CP
February 2, 2006