A Day of Mother's Sorrows

It has been a strange day. A day on which I made plans, plans that were well-intentioned, towards doing my book-keeping course to get a job that will see me through life. Yet, it did not turn out as such. I got to the Pitman Training Centre and for an hour or so, the PAYE timetables I needed to do the course were unavailable. They were being used by other students. They did not have enough in supply. "Amateurs!" I whispered under my breath as I was told that two students were using the timetables I needed to do the course. So I left...

So I left and of course met a friend, let's call him 'J'. We sat awhile on the grass outside St Peter's Church on London Road. An elderly man joined us, who has known 'J' for years. He told of his stroke, his second stroke, as he sat down with our aid, for he was on crutches. He told how his dog had just died. 'J' showed us a letter he has received saying that if he didn't go to every drug rehabilitation programme he would receive a prison sentence of 2- 2 1/2 years. We discussed that given that he had been done on drug 'supply' that it seemed strange he should receive a DDR programme. For, surely, if his crime was supply, he would be a supplier, rather than a user. Yet, the authorities knew he was a user, so showed leniency. Yet still he was found guilty of supply.

We were joined by his friend, 'P' who had shared a cell with 'J'. We were then joined by others, such as 'B' and talked a while. Bounded over a woman called 'K', with her friend, 'M'. She talked of how she only felt comfortable, even though she lives in Moulescombe, with homeless and addicts, because it is all she has known. She was boundless in love. She was streetwise, sassy and compassionate but bore the hallmarks of addiction. I pondered upon how much resemblence in her manner she would have to a modern day St Mary Magdalen.

"Life in Moulescombe," she said, "is awful". She told of how she had three children in care, with whom she is no longer allowed contact. It is this, she said, which only makes her addiction worse. Soon others came over. Then her friend, 'T' came over. She told of how she had just had all of her children taken away from her by Social Services, because, when she went to pick up her children from school one day, the teacher smelt vodka on her breath and called the social services. She was not driving, so no crime had been committed, but Social Services had been on her case for a long time. She was in floods of tears.

A man, 'S', reached over to her as did, 'K', because they had been through the same ordeal. The man, 'S', on seeing my Rosary asked me if I was Catholic. I said that I was. I offered him my Rosary, telling him I have a hundred back home. He showed me the way it should be held. He was from the Midlands. He told me that he had had his children removed from him by Social Services when his child fell down the stairs and was injured. 'T' is devastated. She cried and cried because her children have been removed from her and she is no longer allowed to see them.

"I will do anything you ask," she had said. "I will do anything you ask. Any rehabilitation programme. Any programme at all, but please do not take my children away from me!" I do not know the ins and outs of the case. I told her I know a hundered families in London alone through ATD Fourth World who support families who have had their children removed by Social Services and the devastation it can cause to them and their children. It is true that many, you know, never see their children again, until, we pray, the next life.

As sappy as it may seem, today my eyes were opened to a reality that we Brightonians do not really want to face. The reality that each person who is flitting in and out of prison, in and out of hostels, off and on the streets has a story and more often than not, it is a story that is more full of suffering and despair than our own. I don't know whether I shall have a day as I had today again. Is it a good habit to be associating with the very poor and marginalised when I could be doing my book-keeping course and getting on in the World? What have I to do with them? There's no reason I should be having a smoke, a chat and a drink with them?

And yet, the suffering I saw today, here in the heart of Brighton, outside St Peter's Church, the compassion and love that the poor have for the poor, because they know what it is like to fail, because they know what it is like to lose their children, who they did not themselves abandon, but who were taken away from them by a State which sanctions the killing of the unborn, because of their solidarity with one another. It makes me wonder whether a life spent in an office...is, well, any kind of life lived at all. In the evening I heard a talk by Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on the Gospel according to St Mark. It was very good!

I will dedicate these children of God to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Blessed Mother and Queen of Heaven. I pray you will do so also. Our Lord said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven," and I can tell you now, that as much as hanging around with addicts, ex-cons and the homeless outside St Peter's may not appear as the Kingdom of Heaven, I can tell you that it is, for I have addictions of my own. We are all God's children! Obama will make his speeches at Catholic universities. He will, doubtless continue his programme of extending abortion, gay marriage, contraception and doubtless soon euthanasia too. The World will continue as it is.

Only Christ can change the World! Christ comes to us in the face of the very poor. We strive to show the very poor Christ. It is highly likely that only that and a great deal of prayer will change anything. So yes...pray for Obama. He has much influence, and many innocent lives are in his hands. But Obama is the Emperor! Pray too for those not elevated by the World. Pray too for those little ones who Christ has called us to love. The World will go mad. Sometimes only those thought mad are the voices of truth, compassion, reason and love. I have long contended that you don't need to go to Africa to be a missionary...