|
EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 19 |
October 1999 |
| The Mistakes
of Adolescence Father Jim McCartney is the Director of T.H.O.M.A.S. |
An important aspect of my ministry is working with young people who have made huge mistakes in their past lives. The errors and blunders of adolescence can still limit and obstruct them as they approach adulthood. From the day we leave our mother’s womb, life can be a difficult pilgrimage with an arduous and labouring struggle.
An infant life can be greeted with a stinging and uncompromising attitude of rejection, where love is tainted and flawed with imperfection. From those formative years our ears can be exposed to fierce, brutal and violent human voices. When we feel no one is listening we smash windows and write graffiti on walls. We work with young people who carry a damaged history, which stifles their present moment. Yet we continue to walk with them in the spirit of hope.
I’ve spent time with a person who has been involved with crime since the age of ten. He is still only nineteen and has ninety-seven criminal convictions. There is a secular language, which says to such people you have made your bed now lie in it. In other words there is no hope for you. I can never accept this view. This way of thinking confines people to a state of hopelessness and despair. However the Church is the Embassy of Optimism which has the energy of God’s spirit assuring the human family that it is valuable. It reminds each member of our global family that we have a priceless individuality with a dignity that needs to be honoured at all times.
To err is to be human. So many young people with the confusions of life dig holes for themselves, which come back to haunt them as they try to build their lives in their early adulthood.
Working with people who were once known as junkies, thieves and basically juvenile criminals, constantly reminds me of the difficulties they face as they try to correct their mistakes. In the chaos of their lives, they have inflicted pain on themselves and others. Society can find it hard to forgive.
I have seen with my own eyes those who have confronted their mistakes, and are determined to change and alter their ways of behaviour. This resolute and positive attitude is not created overnight. It is constructed over a period of time.
Often it can involve several spells in a Young Offender’s Institution. It can encompass banging your head on the walls of your bedroom in despair and ripping the wallpaper of your walls in a frenzy of rage. It can entail pumping your veins full of drugs, or collapsing on the street intoxicated with alcohol. Nevertheless the day can come when you waken to your cracked and shattered existence, where you discover those deep wounds of crime and addiction – preventing you from living a healthy and normal life. This is a moment of transformation and society needs to embrace and welcome such people who are bandaging their wounds of past mistakes.
Peter, not his real name, became a childhood criminal. He has recently come out of prison and he states the following “You can come out of prison properly motivated to get on with your life, but then you soon get sly looks. The way people treat you can be hurtful and then the hope that you have begins to disappear. I apply for jobs but never seem to get an interview. "
As a Church we need to be a voice for such people. There are injustices within our community and we, as a Christian family need to verbalise a gospel which gives the powerless an opportunity to fulfil their human potential. There are many sections of society which need to learn how to forgive people who have made errors in their past. A second chance is needed for many people.
Equally some people need to be forgiven many times. This is a risky business with hazardous implications. It demands our courage and stamina. However in our endurance, trust and respect can be born and this can be the solid foundation for the transformation in another person’s life. When we stand with people in their Cavalry of rejection we often see the dawn of resurrection in the most unexpected people
