I found love

Before I knew it I was weeping. Again.

It was Good Friday.

Just minutes earlier, I was standing in front of a child who was abandoned at the hospital upon her birth because of severe deformities. She was nearly three years old, but barely looked even eight months old. She was crib-ridden and helpless, lacking the ability to roll herself over or even touch her own deformed face.

There are sixteen of these abandoned children living at the Missionaries of the Poor home in downtown Kingston. I thought to myself, this is the type of story you hear about on a 20/20 special. The type of story where the riveting images stay with you for weeks and you mourn a child you have never touched, telling her heart-wrenching story to your friends and family, constantly counting the blessings in your life.

The brother tickled her arm. “See her smile through her eyes?” Her face was severely deformed, teeth where a nose should be, a split down the center, and a mass growing out of her head, seeming like a second head. “You can see Christ in her eyes,” he lovingly said.

Missionaries of the Poor is an international Catholic monastic order of brothers dedicated to serving the abandoned, destitute, diseased and mentally and physically disabled. They were founded by Father Holong, a Jamaican priest, in 1981 and serve in Kingston, Jamaica, Uganda, Kenya, India, and the Philippines. For a good article on these wonderful men, check out http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20081116/out/out1.html or their website is http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/

Now, I was standing in the streets of one of Kingston’s ghettos outside of the MOP Children’s home having one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life.

The brothers took turns reenacting the Passion of Jesus Christ, carrying the life size wooden cross down the decrepit street in Kingston one at a time, stopping fourteen times for each station to be read aloud over a microphone for all in the streets to hear. It took an hour and a half. We walked in a procession of brothers, faithful community members, and mentally and physically disabled men, women and children in the midday Kingston sun.

The first time we stopped, each brother dutifully knelt right there in the middle of the street. Looking around, the brothers seemed to be kneeling on a cloud, peaceful, beautiful, mournful and reverent. They asked those who were fit, to kneel as well. I remember thinking, if that brother could endure the suffering of carrying that cross, the least I can do is kneel in solidarity. So I bent down on the uneven road, folded my skirt under my knees, and knelt on the boiling hot and rocky surface. There was mucky sewer water running down the side of the road, just inches from my Sunday’s best and I could smell rotting, burning trash. The pavement dug into my knees and the heat on the road scorched my skin. I remember being ashamed of even these mental complaints as I witnessed the very suffering surrounding me. The very suffering present in the reenactment. We were walking the streets of one of the world’s poorest and most violent cities, where suffering like I have never known, happens on the daily.

I remember looking around. The brother was holding the cross on his left shoulder, with another brother kneeling beside him with his hand resting on the cross. Dozens of other brothers were scattered in the road, their white habits contrasting against the dark and dirty road as they knelt as a symbol of faith, peace and love. There was an elderly man and his wife kneeling with their gaze set on the ground in front of them. She had to help her husband off his knees each of the fourteen times, with determination and strength in their eyes.

We sang choruses as we processed along the street, gathering children and adults on our way. " I have decided to follow Jesus...no turning back, no turning back..The cross before me, the world behind me..." rang loud in clear through the collection of voices in the street. And yes, there was the cross, right before me, as I walked along with tears strewn eye at the profound impact of this event. Jesus died for each of us. Whether you believe him to be the son of God or not, the beauty and strength in that man, to die by crucifixion, for those he loves, is an awing thing. I found so much sadness in the procession, but so much love as well!

I found love in the brother who carried the little angel of a girl the entire time, except to put her down to stand next to him as he knelt. She would just stand there, patiently waiting for her angel to pick her back up and hold her in his arms as they carried on.

I found love in the mentally disabled woman’s hand that I held to keep her on track.

I found love in one sickly man pushing another sickly man in a wheelchair.

I found love in the elderly man who unsteadily but purposefully stepped to the beat of the chorus.

I found love in children and adults on the roadside in front of their war torn homes who decided to walk with us, the crucified walking with the crucified.

I found love like I’ve never found it. And my chest still feels like it might explode.

It makes me so happy to know there are people like the Brothers in this world, who will sacrifice their life for the abandoned and destitute. Who will love the "unlovable". Without them, many in this world would be forgotten.

I felt in solidarity with a larger world. A world I've been thirsting for, yearning for. I was in solidarity with the crucified of today, of yesterday, of nearly 2000 years ago. I knelt alongside the brothers, I walked alongside the disabled, I hugged Michela as we both shed tears. I felt alone but in such a unity with the world. I felt purpose. I felt that we were all sharing each others suffering, as we processed down the street as one people. And I truly realized at that moment, through suffering together, we can carry each other so nobody suffers alone.

We each have our cross to bear, my blind 88 year old friend often tells me. (yes, the one I brought to the hospital the other day)