Fr. Chris - Fifth Sunday of Lent

​“Show Our Children How To Live Fruitful Lives”
The media has been updating us on the civil war in Syria. The intense suffering and senseless loss of life is beyond all comprehension, yet it is still going on today!


The BBC reports it all started 10 years ago with a peaceful uprising against the new president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad. However, a subsequent violent response to the protesters, quickly turned it into a full-scale civil war. This brutal response to the protesters is still denied by Bashar. Sadly, the conflict has resulted in more than 380,000 people dead. Their cities are unrecognizable piles of rubble. A third of the country’s people are in exile. In many ways, the saddest victims have been the tens of thousands of infants and children who have been physically and mentally injured or have been executed in the sight of their mothers, fathers and siblings.


On the CBC radio program, “As It Happens”, Carol Off interviewed two people who have survived the horrors of Syria: 1) One, a mother, who within minutes of childbirth, had to flee the hospital, carrying her twins, one dead, the other still alive. After burying her newborn boy under a lemon tree next to what remained of their home, she and her husband, desperate to escape, managed to find passage to Canada where they now live in St John, N.B. 2) The other is a lad, Omar Alshogre, still only in his 20s, who managed to escape to Washington DC. “A teenager attending his very first [peaceful] demonstration in Syria would end up in prison, enduring horrific torture for several years. But now he is trying to channel that horror into accountability and justice. He says, ‘I feel like I'm two different people. Omar, who is enjoying his life a lot, a Georgetown student meeting nice friends, new people, being optimistic all the time. And then the Syrian Omar, who is focussing on Syria, who is still going through the pain the Syrian people are going through.’”


Like Christ, Omar’s heart was also troubled. He, too, wanted to ask God to save him from his terrible ‘hour’. But his beloved cousin, Bashir, who endured all with a smile, convinced him otherwise. There seemed to be a reason behind the madness only God knew. Bashir died in Omar’s arms, confident, I am sure, his death would bring new life to his home, Syria, like the seed which must die to bear new fruit.


Still, why must children suffer and die like this? Although prayer is paramount in bringing about change, what can we, as parents and community, do to stop this?


Searching for images of Syria’s urban situation, I discovered a website called Abandoned Urbex Canada. A chap named ‘Brent’ explores houses which also have been abandoned in our country. Most of them are empty, but others intact, fully furnished, even canned goods still in cupboards. In one tour he focused on a poster hanging near a bedroom door. Yellowed and curled, it was still possible to read:


If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
If children live with praise, they learn confidence.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with security, they learn to have hope and faith.
If children live with approval, they learn to appreciate and like themselves.
If children live with acceptance and kindness, they learn to find love in the world.
– Children Learn What They Live by Dorothy Law Nolte


This Sunday afternoon, I will be hearing the First Confessions of our First Holy Communion students. I will be thanking Jesus for answering his Father’s will, dying so his new life would bear fruit in our lives and the lives of these children, remembering how critical it is that we die to ourselves for their sake, demonstrating, more than telling them, how to live and be fruitful in their years to come.


Just as Karen Carpenter wrote for their 1972 album, “A Song For You”:
“Bless the beasts and the children,
For in this world they have no voice, They have no choice.
Light their way, When the darkness surrounds them;
Give them love, let it shine all around them.
Give them shelter from a storm; Keep them safe; Keep them warm.”


** This week our Lenten Project question is: “Where do I want to go?” **


– Rev Fr Christopher Tracey, Saint Joseph Parish, Saugeen Shores, Ontario