Station 6

The artist's comment

The main component of this painting is the child in the foreground. His face witnesses to his hunger and pain. It is the face of Christ. The background is totally white to represent the veil of Veronica. The inverted figure 3 on his forehead, a reference to the Trinity, is echoed by the presence of two other children standing behind the first: Christ is divine, one and triune. The two other children, a girl and a boy, indicate not only that God has no gender, masculine or feminine, but that the face of Christ may be found in the face of all persons who suffer, be they male or female.

The greenery in the bottom left hand corner calls to mind the lush colors of nature, as does the bough in the hand of one of the children. This image of nature is in stark contrast with the situation of hunger and suffering shown in the faces of the children and illustrates how famine is often not so much the result of the action of nature, but rather of human selfishness and greed.

After a magnificent ceremony celebrating the perpetual profession of the first Chadian brother in December of 1998, the guests were invited in groups by the various communities forming the mission parish to outdoor tables in the shade of trees that cooled the mission compound. Each table was served a common tray of rice, meat, vegetables and sauce from which we ate with our fingers. Because our table included the bishop, the ceremony officials and the religious superiors, it received food in copious supply. We couldn’t possibly finish it.

I didn’t realize while we were eating that groups of poorly-dressed kids from the village had been gathering near our table. After verifying that we had our fill, one of our hosts took our tray with the idea of setting it on the ground so the children could help themselves. They did, but with what ferocity! In the melee, the tray overturned and they competed for the last bits by scraping dust and sand into their mouths with them.

The desperate scramble was repeated as each guest table finished. Though embarrassed, none of the adults commented. I pretended not to see; still, the scene is engraved in my memory. It gave me an idea of the intensity of hunger’s pains, which I have never experienced. It showed me that even outside of times of famine many children are left to their own devices just to survive. It led me to read more about the effects on food supply of a country exploited for a generation by a corrupt dictator. It made me cry.

The goal of the 1996 World Food Summit to halve the number of malnourished children by 2015 will not be met. The International Food Policy Research Institute predicts that there will be 135 million malnourished children under five in 2020. This means that 40% percent of children under five years old in South Asia and one third in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia will be going hungry in 2020.

We give voice to the prayer of malnourished children

Psalm 80

O Shepherd of Israel, hear us, and come to our help. God of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved. Lord God of hosts, how long will you frown on your children’s plea? You have fed us with tears for our bread, an abundance of tears for our drink. You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, our enemies laugh us to scorn. God of hosts bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.