Haitian Mission Outreach

Since 1999, St Luke's has supported the orphanage in Haiti founded by Fr Rick Frechette, Passionist priest and doctor. Since 1987 the orphanage has cared for thousands of children through the years. Fr Rick has also built the only free pediatric hospital in Haiti, St Damien's.

Dear friends and family,

On January 12, 2020, we will remember the earthquake of ten years past, that devastated Port au Prince, and beyond.
 
You probably remember the statistics, and I will not repeat them here, as they tend to dampen what they are trying to portray, resembling mathematics much more than matters of the heart.
 
We know the destruction and loss were of such overwhelming magnitude, that wounds seem to be fresh again with every cycle of years.
 
Not all of these wounds are internal: sickness with grief, emptiness from loss, shock from horror. Some are still very much physical.
 
And so is the need to tend to the wounds, once again, even ten years later.
 
We are observing a triduum of prayers, which started Friday and ends tomorrow night.
 
The center point of our prayer is given to us by the great prophet, Isaiah.
 
“Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust, my gracious love will not depart from you, neither will my covenant of peace be shaken," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10)
 
Our first prayers have been for the souls that might still be troubled and unable to let go, and go to God. We pray they are all in glory.
 
Our second prayers have been for those still profoundly wounded, in their bodies and in their hearts. For them, every day is an enormous struggle. We pray for their strength and peace.
 
Our third prayers are in gratitude for the many rescuers and helpers, in Haiti and from many countries abroad. Many of these also have painful memories of what they lived through and saw, and yet were sources of heroic inspiration as “wounded healers.”
 
I tried to express this in a video message, at the request of Fr Enzo, that has this link:
https://youtu.be/uSyRJzeM56U
 
Our final prayers are for ourselves and also for anyone reading this: for a better future in each of our countries, and in our world trembling and shaking from many tensions and tragedies.
 
Catholic tradition teaches very practically and in a very enlightened way on the meaning of the healing of memories.
 
Healing of memories is the first purpose for remembering any anniversary of devastation.
 
The teaching, as expressed very clearly by saints and mystics such as St John of the Cross,
is that the healer of memories is hope.
 
It sounds a bit esoteric, but it means that healing has flowed like poured fragrant oils
from the solidarity and acts of heroism, evident constantly and even over these ten years, but first in the Haitian people.
 
Our own staffs worked tirelessly, under warlike conditions, to help those brought to our hospital from under the fallen rubble. These remarkable and dedicated people were bearing their own wounds and losses, and returning to their destroyed homes, neighborhoods, or makeshift tent cities after long, grueling, and heartbreaking shifts.
 
Friends from around the world left the comforts of home, witnessed many horrors, and worked night and day to bring comfort and to save lives.
 
The wounded themselves, of body or heart, struggled to get up again from the rubble, to walk again, to face a new day having lost those whom their hearts will always cherish and mourn.
 
Hope was the furnace that blazed forth all of this courage.
 
It is this hope that brings us healing.
 
With God’s help, let’s keep stoking its fires,
here in Haiti, and all around the world.
 
God knows there is still plenty of work for us all to do.
 
Thank you for remembering the Haitian people today.
 
Fr Rick Frechette CP, DO
Port au Prince
January 11, 2020

 

Dear Family and Friends,
 

My childhood memories of Christmas were a blend of wholesome winter sports (like skiing, skating, tobogganing, and snow ball fights),
and deeply affirming messages about people, God and life.
 
Christmas was joy, with no sense of hardship.
 
I learned fast, however, that most people in the world, especially children, live in circumstances that are harsh, life threatening, and relentless.
Even at Christmas.
 
Christmas as Mary and Joseph knew it was wrought with painful confusion, death threats leveled against their baby,
and exile into the land where their ancestors had been slaves for 430 years.
 
And yet, there were voices of angels at every turn.
 
Christmas was hardship, borne with peace.
 
Such a peace, described in the Scriptures as far surpassing any peace this world can offer,
taught this small family to mine their sufferings for the precious gems of wisdom, like coal crushed by oppressive weight into diamonds,
and to drink fully of even the smallest joy.
 
The current celebration of Christmas, liturgically called The Nativity of the Lord (Latin natalis, Old French nael, current noel)
marks the close of another decade in the history of salvation.
 
Even a cursory glance at the world around us could give the impression that we, and our whole planet,
are much closer to total destruction than we are to the halls of glory.
 
Here in Haiti, a very tiny part of a world-wide narrative, we are closing ten years of profound suffering and tragedy.
 
The decade began for us with an earthquake so devastating, that it caused more death and destruction than the two atomic bombs the ended World War II, combined.
 
Then, before even a year passed, we were plagued with a relentless scourge of cholera.
At our centers alone, we received over 100 people each day, for months, and then reduced numbers, for years.
 
As we dealt with these whirlwinds of pain and death, we were hit with a number of tropical storms and the massive Hurricane Matthew,
which brought devastation in Southwest Haiti to two million people, their homes, and their farms.
 
Also, during this score of years, the value of Haitian currency slowly declined, and then more rapidly, such that by 2019, the gourde had lost two thirds of its value.
Over the same period of the loss of buying power, it cost 20% more to stay alive.
 
As this poor and wounded nation struggled to deal with all of this, crime rose steadily, within institutions and on the streets, and finally chaos prevailed,
as the whole country suffered violent public convulsions, that have shaken Haiti profoundly, for the last 17 months.
 
People openly ask, “Where are the voices to scream out against this terrible suffering?
 
Jeremiah registered  this same complaint  26 centuries ago:
"Even the prophets and priests forage in a land they no longer recognize" (Jeremiah 14:18)
 
Jesus was born into a world that is very much like ours.
 
 At the time of his birth, there had been no prophet for 400 years.
No one to speak the powerful and clear God-given word.
 
It was said that God withdrew his Spirit from the people, for centuries.
Jesus way of explaining such a dark night is that God’s Spirit withdraws, sadly and reluctantly, from hearts wherever there is no welcome.
 
Over time, the human refusal of the encounter with God has a devastating effect.
Everything that was once revered as hallowed (the human soul, a person’s destiny, the Created world, among many other dimensions of life) becomes totally hollow.
 
The panic behavior used to fill the emptiness becomes frenzied, self-destructive, and deadly for all life systems. I have heard zeal described as tripling your speed when you have lost your direction.
 
Hollowness turns up the speed on “an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth”- and then races to far worse.
 
After 400 years of silence, God decided to speak.

Just one Word.

And the Word was made flesh.
 
The Word, silent and helpless, born into a world where religious institutions had become stagnant, corrupt and rich, where the political landscape was rife for explosive revolution (Jesus was suspect as being part of this), where the highways and byways in all directions were full of bandits. Charlatans, religious or otherwise, abounded.
 
Jesus, silent and helpless, was born into a world shaped and reshaped by Roman oppression, in a region ruled by the iron fisted and paranoid Herod the Great, who as a Jewish King was a total sellout to the Romans, and a terror even to his own family.
 
He tried to kill his very son who would succeed him.
And also to kill a “baby threat” to his power.
 
This last, we soberly remember today, in the liturgy of the Holy Innocents.
 
The tormented Herod massacred every baby boy that even might be Jesus, according to the mad calculations he made after learning of his birth.
 
Yes, this was the world Jesus was born into.

No toboggan ride, topped off with hot chocolate.
 
Enter the Word,
the Word that is most powerful
when silent.
 
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
    and the firmament[a] proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours forth speech,
    and night to night declares knowledge.
3 There is no speech, nor are there words;
    their voice is not heard;
4 yet their voice[b] goes out through all the earth,
    and their words to the end of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
 
Here is a fresh version of the ancient teaching on the Nativity of the Lord:
 
Be the word we need to hear -and try very hard not to say anything.
 
Our institutions, religious or otherwise, ring totally hollow when the members have allowed themselves to be gutted.
 
True up your community, your family, your nation,
by being a true word, and not an empty one, a talking head.
 
Stand on your word. Give your word.
Speak from your heart, give witness from your heart.

Open your heart, invite the Spirit under your roof.
 
Carry the true message, day unto day, night unto night, silently with your works, as had been done by good people, just like you, down the millennia.
 
At Nos Petits Frere et Soeurs, and St Luke Foundation, we pledge to continue to do the same, here in Haiti, as we have done for many years,
in good times and in bad, in season and out, in sickness and in health, with God’s help and yours.
 
From all of us, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Abundant blessings, and grateful thanks!
 
Fr Rick Frechette CP DO
December 28, 2019
Port au Prince