RU 12/2007 - Christianity without Christ?

- CHRISTIANITY: Not all facts from the street appear in the media. Here are the latest notes found in the log book of SOS MOTHERS (UNEC), a good meditation for the time of the Passion of Christ.

- Tuesday March 20th, 2007. We met 3 schoolgirls (Annie, major, as well as Laurence and Catherine, minors) of the same provincial school, all of them running around in the street having escaped from home because of their pregnancy. They asked us to help them to rent a cottage, at 5 km from their school, to save their babies: the rent of the whole cottage is 150 E (195 USD) per month, plus 2 monthly rents for guaranty, a total of 450 Euros (858 USD). We handed over to them the requested sum, while asking for a receipt for the guaranty sum, because the house could be useful to us later on, after the birth of the 3 babies. In addition we gave 100 Euros (130 USD) to each of them to start their new life of young mothers going to school. We realize all over again that those young mothers are the best defenders of their babies, inventive, struggling, clear-sighted. It's sufficient to help them a little bit. - When we hear that in a region in the center of France, without naming it, there are several "pro-life" associations, but 'none of their members takes care of the lodging of the mothers in need', we are aghast. Do they really go out to the roads to meet the poor mothers in distress? Do they really fight? Save babies? It's necessary that they tell themselves that without battle and pains there is no victory! We are only 3 active people in the SOS MOTHERS group in Paris, costfree, and we are lodging permanently 10 to 15 pregnant mothers, either in our own studios rented on the name of our UNEC mother association, or in cooperative accomodating families in Normandy, Burgundy, or the French Riviera, and even in Belgium. - Another report we just received from Germany explains that they opened in Bavaria a pro-life center, with 'sidewalk counselling' (in front of the abortion clinics). In addition to that, they have a cabinet in a street of Munich, they have Masses, processions, and they pray rosaries in the street. All of this with 2 salaried employees, and 2 partial time people (free of cost). Result: 'On average we suppose that, thanks to us, at least 1 mother per week keeps his baby instead of aborting it, on a total of 15 abortions per day in Munich'. Elsewhere in the report, they admit: 'As to the research of lodging for mothers in emergency situation, we are too little active.' This says a lot. - Another report from Switzerland is yet more straightforward: 'On 3 contacts with mothers considering abortion, we save only one baby, maybe.' We are upset. 'Maybe'? Our little group, we nearly save 2 babies per week (50 to 80 babies per year, according to the year). We NEVER had an abortion, once a true contact with the mother was established. We would consider such a failure as terrifying, almost unacceptable for us. We would not dare to look at us in the mirror. Because we want REALLY to save the baby, and with the baby the mother. Does one jump into the water to save a person who is being drowned, without trying to pull him REALLY out of the water, whatever it costs? Can a person save a baby without saving his purse, without giving his precious time, without REALLY paying attention and caring for him, without even opening his domicile for one night or two for this mother, if it's necessary? Is it possible 'to counsel mothers facing abortion' with the left hand only, without risking more? Doesn't one mock those poor little mothers while wanting to manage their problem like a normal affair, by absract programs and procedures like in industry, using some natural or supernatural marketing, without risking one's own life or disturbing one's own habits? Can I save babies from 2 to 4 PM? Don't we hide our little comfortable ego behind associative structures and coordinations ('together we are stronger'), while forgetting that we're dealing with a terrifying personal battle between life and death, between the good and the evil, light and shade, God and Satan, a battle which asks for our total and definitive engagement? We at SOS MOTHERS, we don't have any enormous structures like our friends in Bavaria: they have a center, salaried employees, evenings vigils with hundreds of people, a bishop to 'preside' over their prayers etc. One could ask: do we need all that, to save a little baby from assassination? Or again more deeply: We Christians, did we simply lose personal charity? Have we no more the simple look to discern a mother in crisis? Are we that much enclosed in our tower of ivory - or cage of birds pr stoup - that we don't see anymore our neighbor in the autobus suffering, the young mother - mostly minor - on our path who is deciding by despair between life and death, who even thinks about suicide in an inextricable situation? Are we no more able to pronounce a simple word like this one: "I'll help you, Madam", or "Miss, I'll help you", while putting our hand gently on her arm? Is it necessary to have processions for that, vigils, centers with salaried employees, a bishop, a cardinal? - If one has the courage to sincerely ask these questions, one understands that our Europe is no more Christian: because Christian love died out! And in particular, one understands that the new mission of Europe begins here, at the roots, on the path of the Good Samaritan. This mission can take centuries of time, like the first mission of Europe, but we won't enonomize it, even not in 'the divine economy of Salvation'. OK then, with God's grace, let's start today this mission, immediately! Let's restart to LOVE again, as He did, who loved us until death! 'By this sign they will recognize that you are my disciples...' - And if we go a bit farther in this challenging call for charity? The Church sings this very week in the liturgy of Holy Thursday: 'Ubi Caritas, ibi Deus est' - where is Charity, there is God. And, with consternation, one can conclude from this the opposite: 'Ubi Caritas non est, Deus non est!' A Christianity without Christ? A Church as an immense corporation that would turn without Jesus? Catholics on the opposite side of God's Son? But then, where is Jesus? 'What you will do to the smallest of my brothers, it's to Me that you will have done it', 'I was hungry, and you did not nourish me', 'I cried, and you did not comfort Me'... God hides himself in the heart of the poor. From there, one can understand: it's not us who help the poor, who comfort those being in distress, no, it's the poor who pull us away from ourselves, who reveal God to us, who permit us to serve God, to unite us to Him by the charity. In truth, THEY are the rich ones, and we are the poor. 'If you don't become like those little children, you won't enter into the Kingdom of God.' The bank and the treasure of the Christians, it's the poor, the sick ones and the starving ones. The investment of the Good Samaritan, it's the miserable in the ravine. The foolishness of the faithful, it's the Cross of Christ. It's in fact the world upside-down. But we 'Christians', we imagine to help the poor, to save the babies from abortion, to attend the mothers in distress while leaning ourselves downwards, while 'having mercy of them', while giving our surplus, while doing it with the left hand, during 'partial time'. Yet, it would be necessary to do the opposite, it would be necessary that we rise up towards them, that we ask their help to finally spend our money in a Christian way, that we learn from them what is HOPE, to OPEN OURSELVES, to WAIT for GOD'S KINGDOM, to WAIT for GOD. To learn from them how to become small, servers, servants, tortured and crucified, in one word how to become Jesus. We won't avoid any abortion if we don't get into pain ourselves, torturing us until the evening to find a fitting home for the little mother in distress, going with her until the entrance of the Hades, until our own tears and our own deep disarray: 'Eli, Eli, lama sabactani?' - Thus only this prayer is fitting to us: 'God, have mercy of our miserable manner to be Christians, excuse us to have understood so little since 2000 years, rescue us from our selfishness, transform us into apostles of charity, make us your real disciples, take us to your Cross, help us to forget us, so that YOU become for us ALL IN ALL, and we ourselves nothing! On the Cross, one doesn't wonder anymore if this is useful, efficient, reasonable. One asks, with a weak voice, for water for the thirst. That's how we understand, at SOS MOTHERS association, the Gospel of the Good Samaritan, or in other words, 'the pro-life battle' !

- Friday, March 23rd, 2007. This week we met also Celine, 22 years, 1 month pregnant, AIDS infected. We met her while walking down a staircase in a building in Paris. She contracted AIDS by a half-drugaddicted, at the time of a superficial encounter. She thinks of abortion in order not to infect the baby. We immediately phoned to our medical counsel, a physician who is since 1 year in pension, and thus at our accessible for us at all times. He told us that there is no problem for the baby! It's even necessary that Celine take her medicaments of tritherapy in order to take care of herself (1 injection per week), so that the risks of infection of the baby at the time of the birth and later on are reduced as much as possible. During pregnancy, there is no problem for the baby: the placenta is an absolute protection against the mother's illnesses, putting the baby practically out of danger of contagion. It was necessary to explain this to Celine, because the medical personal doesn't dare anymore to say things, being afraid to be brought to court in case of the least false indication or the least failure. She accepted this willingly. She slept two nights at our helper Lea's domicile, then she we have to find a more stable solution, together. - Another encounter: Carine, 20 years. We saw her - and talked to her - in a Parisian bus: she poured those hidden tears that one only sees when one has the courage to see them. She lives some 80 km away from Paris. Pregnant, she's nearly orphan: her father, after divorce, disappeared; her mother is dragging around with other Gentlemen and doesn't interest herself for her daughter. It's apparently a cousin who made her pregnant. Incest, we meet it more and more, it's frightening. We gave her 60 Euros (78 USD), because we didn't have more money with us. The baby is safe, thanks to God. - 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit'. End of Passion meditation. - (ru)

- - O.A.M.D.G. - -