Open your Eyes and See.

Introduction

I have closely followed the course of the child abuse crisis for a number of years. Every time I read something about the many accusations levelled against the churches and also the perpetrators, I could not help but to feel compassion for all - victims/survivors, perpetrators and the men in the middle, the priests and bishops who now sit with the damage to repair. Although it is an abhorring thing to do and experience, I think with all that has been going on, what with court and royal commission hearings as well as the Catholic Church's preventative measures put into place, that all who believe in a loving, compassionate and forgiving Father, should stand still a while and pray for those men (and women) who have been branded by society and the Christian community, as evil.

An Old Man

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, they found these words written on a piece of paper - the old man's sole bequest to posterity.

What do you see nurses ...what do you see; what are you thinking when you're looking at me? A cranky old man, not very wise, uncertain of habit with faraway milky eyes who dribbles his food and makes no reply when you say in a loud voice, 'I do wish you'd try!' A man who seems not to notice the things that you do; and forever is losing a sock or a shoe? Who, resisting or not, lets you do as you will with bathing and feeding the long day to fill?

Is that what you're thinking? Is that what you see? Then open your eyes, nurse - you're not looking at me. I'll tell you who I am as I sit here so still; as I do at your bidding, as I eat at your will.

I'm a small child of ten with a father and mother, brothers and sisters who love one another; a young boy of sixteen with wings on his feet - dreaming that soon now a lover he'll meet; a groom soon at twenty, so have I thought; my heart gives a leap as I took the vow that I promised to keep.

At twenty-five, now alas, my vows were not for the love of my heart: I have no young of my own and a secure happy home. At thirty there are other young I’m to meet on the path laid down by the Church’s feed. They grow fast and so have I bound them to me with ties that should last. At forty are they gone but others their place do take, to ensure that I would not mourn and again may know children, beloved by me.

Dark days are upon me now for the children I’ve loved, shudder with dread and with the voice of the world call me already dead. As I think of the years and the love I thought I've known, I realize how cruel to suppress the nature of man and make of him the Church’s fool; I realize that man was not made to promise a vow that he would keep himself from that with which nature him endow.

Now that my body is crumbling, grace and vigour departing, where once I had a heart, there is now a stone. But inside this old carcass, a young man still dwells and every now and again my battered heart swells as I remember the joys and the pain; as I think of the years gone too fast; as I love my bride I could have had, did the Church not come and break my pride. As I live my life all over again.

So open your eyes, people, open them and see - not a cranky old man; not a paedophilian monster and lover of youth. Look closer and see me as I stand before my Creator. Hear me, filled with sorrow, remorse and

regret as I whisper “Have mercy on one such as me; forgive me and remember me when you come into your Kingdom?”

Caeli Francisco

11 March 2014