Haiti in Ashes

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Catholics around the world today heard these words and received the mark that begins a season of repentance, preparation for the salvation of Easter.

As I walked up the aisle—under the ornate, vaulted roof of the Basilica at Notre Dame—I couldn’t help but think of recent “news” from Haiti. “Haitians so poor they eat dirt” read the headline for an AP story run in publications across the country, even in my small community newspaper. Desperate Haitians in Cite Soleil and other slums eat dirt cookies to assuage the constant hunger pangs. Filling their stomachs with dust instead of nourishment.

Apparently, Haitians don’t even need to return to dust at the end of days. They have never left the dust. We are different. In our excessive material possessions, meticulously sanitized homes, and even overly decorated prayer, we need Ash Wednesday to attempt to return to humility—to faith only in the transcendent.

But in Haiti, children play in the dust, bare soles waiting for parasites. The old and frail sleep on the dust, offering no comfort to weary bones. And the hungry—the many many hungry—eat dust, simply having nothing else.

Where is the Bread of Life for them? I can’t help but wonder…

During Lent, Christians remember their charge to be Christ’s hands and feet on earth.

If we are to remember our beginning and eventual end in ashes, what better way to do so than to serve those who have never been allowed to forget their ashes?

Christ died for our sins and rose to bring us out of ashes. Haitians live in ashes. We are Christ on earth. So we must go to those living in ashes and offer them a chance to rise, as Jesus offered to us.

“Mwen te grangou, nou ban m manje….chak fwa nou te fè sa pou yonn nan pi piti pami frè m yo, se pou mwen nou te fè li.”

“I was hungry, you gave me food….each time you did this for one of the least among my brothers, you did it for me.”
Matthew 25