"Mary is the first light who announces night’s end...."

I have not followed Pope Francis' visit to Colombia closely, but was particularly struck by the text of his homily at Villavicencio. This report at the Vatican Radio website includes a lovely image, as well as the full text of the homily. Once again, reading Pope Francis, I am put in mind of the beauty of language that is also typical of Pope Benedict XVI.

The writings of Ingrid Betancourt have given me some idea of the history of the conflict in Colombia that now promises to have come to an end. The force of Pope Francis' words in favour of reconciliation are, in that context, immense. Force is added to them by the city in which they were spoken, a city which saw one of the most tragic events of the Colombian conflict.

Mary is the first light who announces night’s end, and above all, the impending day.  Her birth helps us to understand the loving, tender, compassionate plan of love in which God reaches down and calls us to a wonderful covenant with him, that nothing and no one will be able to break...

Reconciliation is not an abstract word; if it were, then it would only bring sterility and greater distance.  Reconciliation means opening a door to every person who has experienced the tragic reality of conflict.  When victims overcome the understandable temptation to vengeance, they become the most credible protagonists for the process of building peace.  What is needed is for some to courageously take the first step in that direction, without waiting for others to do so.  We need only one good person to have hope!  And each of us can be that person!  This does not mean ignoring or hiding differences and conflicts.  This is not to legitimize personal and structural injustices.  Recourse to reconciliation cannot merely serve to accommodate unjust situations.  Instead, as Saint John Paul II taught: “[Reconciliation] is rather a meeting between brothers who are disposed to overcome the temptation to egoism and to renounce the attempts of pseudo-justice.  It is the fruit of sentiments that are strong, noble and generous that lead to establishing a coexistence based on respect for each individual and on the values that are proper to each civil society” (Letter to the Bishops of El Salvador, 6 August 1982).  Reconciliation, therefore, becomes substantive and is consolidated by the contribution of all; it enables us to build the future, and makes hope grow.  Every effort at peace without a sincere commitment to reconciliation is destined to fail. 

Another snippet from Ingrid

I have already posted a snippet from Ingrid Betancourt's book, Even Silence Has an End. It would be wrong to take from that post, and this one, the idea that the book is a work of devoutness and piety. It isn't. But the presence of moments of religious faith in the book is almost "natural". As you read the book you happen across them, as if they are a natural part of Ingrid's life.

Some of the captives held with Ingrid by FARC were more "political" than "military". Like Ingrid herself, the FARC was holding them as an exchange for FARC prisoners held by the Colombian government. Other prisioners, like the policemen and soldiers who had been captured by FARC, were closer to being prisoners of war - though FARC did demand financial ransom for their release. The non-political hostages were much more vulnerable to reprisal or being killed if they tried to escape - the FARC did not lose as much from their death as they would have lost from the deaths of, say, Ingrid and the three Americans held with her.

In this excerpt, Ingrid is giving advice to one the policeman held with her just before he makes an escape attempt.

"Yes, and be careful where you put your feet. Try to get out [of the river] where there's a bed of leaves, or in the mangrove. You have to make absolutely sure not to leave any traces"
"Okay."
"Wring out your clothes, set up your compass, and walk due north."
He listened.
"Stop every forty-five minutes and take a good look around. And use the time to call upstairs, so he'll give you a hand."
"I don't believe in God."
"It doesn't matter, he won't be offended. You can call him anyway. If he doesn't reply, call Mary - she's always available"
He smiled ....

Soon after Pinchao's escape, the FARC guerillas holding Ingrid and her fellow captives staged an execution of him in the nearby forest to give the impression that he had been recaptured. At some points in their captivity, the hostages had access to radios - and this was one of them. There were two regular programmes which broadcast messages from friends and relatives of FARC hostages, in the hope that the hostages would be able to hear them, and these were listend to keenly in the camp whenever it was possible. Soon after Pinchao's execution:

We all switched on our radios at the same time. The voice of the reporter announced the news, and it echoed round the camp. "After seventeen days of walking, police subintendent Jhon Frank Pinchao has found his freedom and his family once again. Here are his first words".

Then I heard Pinchao's voice, full of light in our starless night:

"I would like to send a message to Ingrid. I know she's listening to me at this moment. I want her to know I owe her the greatest gift of all. Thanks to her, I have found my faith again. My little Ingrid, your Virgin Mary was there for me when I called to her. She put a police patrol on my path."

Forty Days for Life: a meditation

I had hoped to spend some time at the London vigil for the Forty Days for Life, but circumstances have conspired against.

However, I share the dialogue below from Ingrid Betancourt's Even Silence Has and End, which I read yesterday evening. This book tells the story of Ingrid's six years as a captive of the FARC guerillas in the Colombian jungle. Clara was with Ingrid as a member of her election campaign team when both were seized by the guerillas. During their time in captivity, they found it very difficult to get on with each other. Some six months or so before this dialogue, Clara had expressed a wish to have a child with one of the guerillas, since she was worried she would be too old to have children after her release. This dialogue occurs just as Clara has revealed her pregnancy to Ingrid, and takes place about two years into their six years of captivity:

"You're the first to know. Can I give you a hug?"
"Of course you can. I'm happy for you. It's the worst time and the worst place, but a child is always a blessing from above".
Clara sat down next to me and took my hand and said, "I'm going to call her Raquel."
"Fine. But think about some boys' names, too, just in case."
She remained thoughtful, staring into space. "I'll be a father and a mother at the same time."
"The child has a father. You have to tell him."
"No! Never!"
She got up to go, took a step, and then turned round again. "Ingrid?"
"Yes."
"I'm afraid."
"Don't be afraid. Everything will be fine."
"Am I beautiful?"
"Yes, Clara, you're beautiful. A pregnant woman is always beautiful".

Ingrid Betancourt on Woman's Hour

Ingrid Betancourt was held hostage in the Colombian jungle for a period of six years. She was captured by the FARC guerrillas whilst campaigning as a candidate in a presidential election. I posted in July 2008 (links from this post to the Lourdes blog no longer work - but the video of Ingrid Betancourt's visit to the grotto can be seen here on the main Lourdes website - look out for the exchange of looks between Ingrid and her mother to which I refer in my July 2008 post) about the visit that Ingrid Betancourt made to Lourdes, with her mother and other family members, following her release. Ingrid has now written a book about her experience of captivity, which has just been published. Her interview on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour this week is in connection with the promotion of the book.

You can find the interview at this link. I think that this is a permanent link, so am expecting that it will remain available.

There are two particularly interesting sections in the interview. The first is where Ingrid talks about what she felt made her captors brutal towards her and her fellow hostages. She identified three factors which she felt, in combination, made their brutality possible, and suggested that these factors could apply in any organisation. They were in very exceptional situation which brought out the worst in human beings, making her captors cruel, sadistic and humiliating. In a manner reminiscent of Catholic teaching on original sin, Ingrid observes that there is something like this in all of us. The factors Ingrid identified are: the power her captors had over their captives (represented by their possession of weapons and strength); a hierarchy which allowed them to have a lack of responsibility for their own actions (manifested in the explanation that they were just obeying orders from others); and a lack of witnesses due to the isolation of the jungle (so that their captors could do what they wished without any accountability to others).

One can think of any number of situations in our own country where the explanation that "we are following Government policy" or "this is what the guidance says" is used to avoid taking a personal responsibility for a course of action.

The second very interesting section is where Ingrid answers the question about how she was able to cope with the hardship of her prolonged captivity.  She talks about love. Firstly, she cherished the moments of love she had spent with her parents and her children in the past, and these moments gave her a desire to get back to that life. Love because she had the sensation that God was there, that the situation was not the chaos it appeared, that her situation was something that she must go through for it to have a meaning. And finally she speaks of the love of her fellow captives, who she describes as being her "heroes".

UPDATE: There is an an article based on an interview with Ingrid Betancourt in the Guardian, which gives some wider background to her experiences as a hostage.

Ingrid Betancourt: a witness to faith and to love of the Virgin

The website of the shrine at Lourdes has just alerted me to an aspect of Ingrid Betancourt's liberation from captivity in the Colombian jungle that appears to have escaped the media attention.

During [Ingrid Betancourt's] captivity, her mother, Madame Yolanda Pulecio Velez, expressed the wish to go with her daughter to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes: "When Ingrid is freed, our first journey will be to Lourdes, together. I have promised it to the Virgin".

Ingrid Betancourt visited Lourdes on 12th July, with her mother, her children, her sister and her nephews/nieces. Two reports of her visit can be found here and here, on the Lourdes blog. There are also two video clips on the "multimedia" area of the Lourdes main website. Sorry, all in French. Herewith my translation of part of the coverage from the website:

Since her arrival in the Marian city yesterday evening, very contradictory information has circulated. Would she come to the torchlight procession for the feast of St Benedict, patron of Europe? Would she go to the town hall to receive the medal of the town? It was finally at the grotto, and only there, that she wished to show herself, symbolically, after having prayed for more than an hour before the Blessed Sacrament, in the Adoration Chapel of the shrine .... "What has touched me about this woman is the peaceful coherence between her strong faith, the love of her family, and her commitment to the service of others", observed the bishop "guardian of the grotto" (Bishop Jacques Perrier of Lourdes and Tarbes). He insisted on the secret of Ingrid Betancourt "To live for ... ". She left Lourdes this afternoon, after a pilgrimage of 24 hours which will go down in history.

At the end of her visit to the Grotto, during which she led the praying of two decades of the Rosary, Ingrid Betancourt thanked the Virgin for her freedom and asked her to help the hostages who remain behind. There is a lovely moment in the video on the Lourdes website where Ingrid exchanges a look with her mother.

What I had not noticed (perhaps not having a television contributed to this, perhaps not) was that when Ingrid Betancourt was reunited with her mother on the tarmac of the airfield in Bogota she knelt down in prayer with her mother and some of the other released hostages, praying particularly for the hostages who remain in Colombia. I have just looked at a photograph of this on the BBC news website - and the whole thing looks perfectly natural and unpretentious. [Amusingly, the "label" that shows when your mouse hovers over the picture reads "Ingrid Betancourt ... prays next to her mother Yolando Pelucia and 11 other hostages during a press conference after their arrival at the Catam airbase in Bogota" whereas the rather banal visible caption reads "There was a huge sigh of relief as the hostages arrived in the capital, Bogota, on Wednesday."]