Children in Peril

       The book Sarah's Key written by Tatiana de Rosnay has captured my attention and my heart. It begins as two side-by-side stories but I want to focus on the little girl. Sarah is a ten-year old Jewish girl living in Paris when the French police come in the dark of night to take her, her mother and father away. The time is July 1942. Through Sarah’s observations, thoughts and feelings we are exposed to the horrors of the incarcerations, bus and train rides, the camps, the separation of families. Through the many questions she poses to herself we are bombarded with the atrocity of her situation.

          The fathers are taken away first, then the mothers are torn from their children. Sarah clings to her mother until the very last minute. What follows for Sarah is the enormous amount of crying and calling that ensues.I was especially struck when she describes the toddlers who had identification tags tied to them.f course they removed them as all children of that age do. So now there is a pile of tags and a large number of unnamed children.

          I just paused and was overcome with the thoughts of children in our own country more than 75 years later who are experiencing much the same—the border children, the abducted children, the stolen children, the abused children.heir horrifying dread, their extreme fear, the great uncertainty they face overwhelms me.

          I pray for our country, our lawmakers, and social workers to do their best to make a bad situation better. I pray for the foster and adoptive families that try through many hardships to return the children to some normalcy.And I pray that I always treat others with respect and know when I need to say I’m sorry.

       Sr. Mary Rabe, OSB

A Prayer for Children

     How fast the days fly!  Soon it will be time for interim reports at school.  Yet, I am still striving to learn the names of all the students I contact daily.

    The third graders, most of whom I had for religion last year, have grown some.  I am delighted to have them again, along with our current second graders.  Not a single Catholic among them, yet, most claim the parish church as their own.  It is there that they participate in a weekly Mass or prayer service.         

     In these children, I see the light of God’s love shining out. Their innate goodness and desire to trust humbles me.  They are so ready for the Good News!  They love hearing about Jesus. After yesterday’s lesson, one youngster asked if she could be a Christian even if she’s not baptized. 

            During morning prayer, on this feast of the Holy Cross, this child and all the others, came to mind. 

        Lord Jesus, I place these children and their families

        in your heart, along with children throughout the earth.

        May your cross be for them a tree of life, a fountain of

        blessings and a shield in adversity.  Grant that all may

        come to share in the glory of the redemption that you have

        won for us.

            Sr. Sharon Portwood, OSB

Transforming the Future for the Children of the World

     Gibran’s The Prophet,* offers that children’s “souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” This rings true, especially with the pace and magnitude of change in our world today. Children, especially, need to be able to believe, to trust in the future. They depend on parents and society to build the foundation for it. How important the foundation!

    In the Romero Prayer, the author speaks to me of our niche in transforming the future for those we love, for next generations. On the chance that you’ve not yet experienced this reflection, I’m passing it on.

               ARCHBISHOP OSCAR ROMERO PRAYER

(Actually composed by Bishop Ken Untener,

 but has become attributed to Archbishop Oscar Romero)

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise

that is God’s work.  Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that

the Kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.

We plant the seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing

that.This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an

opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between

the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

May the children of our world have reason for gratitude and continue

to build a better future for all!        

*The Prophet, by Kalil Gibran, originally published by Alfred A. Knopf Publisher, NY, 1923

       Sr. Sharon Portwood, OSB

Comites Christi: Companions of Christ

After the joy and glory of the feast of Christmas on Dec. 25, the series of saints’ feasts in the next three days come as a sober, startling reminder of the Paschal Mystery. The feasts of the “companions of Christ” seem to be in the wrong season but have been celebrated on these dates for centuries. The companions are Stephen, the first martyr on Dec. 26, John the Apostle and Evangelist on Dec. 27 and the Holy Innocents, the children Herod killed in Bethlehem on Dec. 28.

Each of these feasts illustrate what it means to be a companion of Christ. Each exemplifies the consequences of walking with Christ and giving testimony about the “Good news.” Some commentators view them in terms of martyrdom. Stephen experienced a red martyrdom, spilling his blood for the sake of his faith; John the Evangelist lived a white martyrdom being sent into exile on the Island of Patmos; the Holy Innocents suffered an innocent martyrdom because they had been born around the time of Christ’s birth.

This year I am particularly struck by the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Some time ago I was given a trip to Israel in December and went to the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. All of the memorials were moving but the Children’s Memorial was heartbreaking.  It is a memorial for the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered during the Holocaust, hollowed out from an underground cavern. You walk through the dark cave lit with memorial candles, a customary Jewish tradition to remember the dead, reflected infinitely in the dark space. The candles create the impression of millions of stars shining in the firmament. The names of murdered children, their ages and countries of origin can be heard in the background. I wept as I walked through it. When I returned home, the first feast celebrated was the feast of the Holy Innocents and I wept again.

  In this year of 2012 the feast of the Holy Innocents is made flesh again. We think first of the children murdered at Sandy Hook School in Connecticut, then with just a little imagination we think of all the children murdered by drive by shootings or by weapons in the hands of people, who like Herod, are afraid, who have too much power and who think only of their own motivations. We also think of the children who are abused and murdered by their own families. It is no consolation that all of these children are companions of Christ.

            On Dec. 28 we can only pray in the words of the Book of Common Prayer: "…Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace."

         Sr. Deborah Harmeling, OSB