V
Simon of Cyrene
Help !
The setting is the bare exterior of a house. Two
chairs stand out against the yellow wall (yellow symbolizes warning or
danger). A woman standing in the doorway on the right glares menacingly
on the child bent over the chair in an attitude of despondency. The
woman's dress ripples in the wind—the wind of her anger, of the
violence which has just been unleashed upon the child, and his bare
lower back reveals the marks of that violence. His despondency and the
barren setting symbolize that he is beyond help. |
| A reflection by Brother Bernard Couvillion |
|
| Simon of Cyrene, a complete stranger to Jesus, helped him. Paradoxically, surprising numbers of children are physically abused by the adults they most love and trust. In
the United States, the number of children abused and neglected by their
parents has soared in a ten-year period ending in 1997 from 1.4 million
to some 3 million, more than eight times faster than the increase in
overall children’s population! Nine of 10 professionals cite a rise
in parental substance abuse and binge drinking as the cause of this
epidemic of child battering in the world’s richest country. (America,
April 24, 1999) In
traditional societies, often for cultural reasons, girls are more
vulnerable than boys. In India the brothers explained to me that an
oppressive set of dowry laws makes girls a liability, subjecting them to
neglect and even infanticide. Amnesty International estimates that 135
million of the world's girls have undergone genital mutilation,
approximately 6,000 per day. It is practiced extensively in Africa and
is common in some countries in the Middle East. Often
physical violence is administered in the name of good discipline, or as
a justified pedagogical tool. In schools in Zimbabwe, I learned that
teachers use “beatings,” as they call them, not just to punish bad
behavior but to chastise students who fumble a recitation or fail to do
homework. I was present at a Cameroon schoolyard assembly when the
brother principal announced that the strap would be given a moratorium
for a week to give students a chance to perform under a more merciful
system of correction. They cheered. |
| We give voice to the prayer of
children abused by those whom they trust |
Psalm 55 O God, listen to my prayer, reply;
with my cares, I cannot rest. I tremble at the shouts of the foe, at the
cries of the wicked; for they bring down evil upon me. They assail me
with fury. My heart is stricken within me. Death’s terror is on me,
trembling and fear fall upon me and horror overwhelms me. O that I had
wings like a dove to fly away. So I would escape and take refuge in the
desert. I would find a shelter from this destructive storm, O Lord ! |