If there is a word that should describe the early hours of this day, it should be the word, “busy.” At eight in the morning we drove to an elementary school a few miles from the parish rectory. Three of us priests boarded a pick-up and hit the rough roads and faced the dusty roads of the suburbs of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. Upon arrival we saw catechists and children waiting for us. The catechists made us choose from among the prepared seats. Then, unceremoniously, we sat to hear the confessions of children. I chose the place under the tree where the wind was cooler.
One after another, these little children would take their turns in making their first confessions. Some would go hurriedly. Others, nervously. Some would read the confession formula with childish grins and fidgety fingers. Other children would swing their legs hanging from the chair. But most meaningful of them all is the realization that these children, most of them anyway, know how to speak so responsibly as they accuse themselves of sins, sometimes exaggerating them, something that we adults seldom would ever do. While children have a deep sense of sin, what with their sensitive consciences, we adults tend to belittle sin, the impact of sin, the punishment for sin, and the attachment to sin. We justify. We rationalize. We are ready to defend ourselves. We even have the temerity to say to all and sundry that we have no sin, that we are faultless, that it’s always the fault of someone else, maybe traceable back to either Adam or Eve, or both Adam and Eve!
None of that justification or rationalization could ever be found in the hearts of these little Christians. Thing is all we need to do is teach them the basics, the fundamentals of right and wrong, true and false, good and evil, or proper and improper. Their consciences are formable at this stage. It is here where parenting comes in. Culture and society talk only of issues like responsible parenthood without any mention whatsoever of responsible parenting. But I digress.
Back to the admirable sight of children lining up for confessions, you can see not just the state of their inner lives, but also the condition of poverty written all over their faces. It was this poverty that broke my heart.
It was this same kind of poverty that made me think of reaching out to them, of doing the little thing that I could in my own little way or in my utter helplessness. The resolve was intense, but sometimes it could be tentative given the enormity of the mission at hand.
This afternoon I met Aileen, Patrick and two other children. They visited the canteen and souvenir shop of the parish. From my short conversation with them, I gathered that they were in Grade Five. I surmised they must have been eleven years old or so. They wanted to buy something, but they discussed among themselves that they could not afford to buy what they wanted as their little daily allowance was only so much. Overhearing it, I volunteered to give them any drink of their choice. The two boys chose soda or cola, the girls opted for a chocolate drink. I noticed, however, that they were not eating anything solid. So I gave them forty pesos (a little less than a dollar) to buy some fried bananas at a nearby rolling store. I did some arithmetic and figured they needed only eight pesos each for the local. Thirty-two pesos should have been enough for the four of them. And they had extra eight pesos. So off they went.
A few minutes later, they came back to the rectory souvenir shop where they left their school bags. I noticed they were not munching anything at all. t you find the rolling store that sells I asked. We did, but we decided not to spend the amount on and spend it instead on our fare back home, it’s the same eight pesos we need anyway. Aileen reasoned out rather convincingly, it’s better to go hungry and go home fast, than walk a considerable distance on full stomach to be hungry and tired all over again upon arrival. The reasoning struck a chord in my ears and heart. These children, in their very young lives, knew how to make priorities out of the little that they had. They knew how to budget things. And they knew this because poverty taught them.
How different things are for richer children. They have lots of money. They do not know what they want. They have no priorities. Their wealth does not teach them anything about the hard decisions one has to make in life.
I wanted to give the four poor children something more to ease their hungry stomachs, but as I went back, they suddenly disappeared in the sunset. Maybe for the first time in the longest time they were able to ride back home. Thanks to the omnipresent tricycle. Thanks to a little amount that could shoulder their fare. Thanks to a hard decision they made–transportation over food! For their more mature little hearts, it was already such a big blessing to ride a tricycle. For most of us, however, the sight could simply be heart-rending!
