TRÓCAIRE

TRÓCAIRE IN SOMALIA

A beneficiary stands in line awaiting to be attended to.

THE ENTIRE WORLD IS HURTING FROM THE COVID-19 CRISIS, BUT IT’S IN PLACES LIKE SOMALIA WHERE YOU SEE HOW THE PANDEMIC IS TIPPING PEOPLE WHO WERE ALREADY DESPERATELY POOR OVER THE EDGE.

BY PAUL HEALY

Somalia is a country already struggling due to conflict and the awful impact of climate change. Now a global pandemic has been thrown in on top of everything else. It is a country I dearly love, and it breaks my heart to see the people facing so many challenges to their very survival.

Ireland knows only too well the devastation caused by COVID-19. Over 2,000 people have lost their lives, while many thousands more have lost their livelihoods. In countries like Somalia, the real damage being caused by the pandemic will only be known over the next few months. That is because it is over the coming months the food crisis sparked by this pandemic will be felt.

Trócaire runs four hospitals and 24 outreach centres in Gedo, a region of Somalia a little bit larger than Ireland. Despite its size, we are the only healthcare provider in Gedo.

We put a huge amount of effort into On top of everything, a very bad drought meant containing the virus. We trained over 400 that crops didn’t harvest. There has been very staff and issued protective equipment to all little rainfall this season. It should be raining now of them. Our community health workers and it is bone dry. We’re now seeing a perfect visited 125,000 people. We were able to do storm of crises. a lot of testing and contact tracing. It was a Children are being re-admitted to Trócaire real challenge, but we managed it. medical centres with severe acute malnutrition

Like in Ireland, people in Somalia lost their and that is a massive concern. What is even more jobs and lost their ability to sell products. alarming is that some children are being admitted Unlike in Ireland, there is no safety net in Somalia. People There has been very little unable to earn income are left with nothing. As well as casual labour being gone and markets rainfall this season. It should be raining now and it is bone being closed, remittances from dry. We’re now seeing a abroad also collapsed. Just as Irish families used to rely on money perfect storm of crises. being sent home from Britain or America, so many Somalis rely on those to our centres with malnutrition, staying with us remittances. The global economic crisis has for six weeks and then being readmitted again really been felt by those families. shortly after. It shows how deep the crisis is.

Somalia was already one of the most 250 successful deliveries on her own in one fragile and complex countries in the world month. The strain on the staff is significant in which to manage large health projects, when you are trying to manage COVID-19 and but the COVID crisis has made it even more malnutrition as well as normal health services. complicated. It is already a challenge dealing My biggest worry is that we won’t have with malnutrition, chronic disease and water- enough food and we won’t have enough borne diseases. To have COVID-19 on top of staff to respond to the emerging crisis. That that has stretched our resources. We have is always my fear; that the people in Gedo won’t have enough. The locals in Gedo call The locals in Gedo call Trócaire Trócaire ‘the mother of ‘the mother of health’. That is health’. That is something something people back home in Ireland should be incredibly people back home in Ireland proud of. The health systems should be incredibly proud of. we have put in place are there because of them. We have been here for almost 30 years. People had to create new centres for isolation wards. here really rely on us. We have had to train staff. We have had to When it comes to helping our less fortunate spend a lot of money on doing that rather brothers and sisters who are struggling, there is than focusing on what we were set up to do nobody better to stand up and respond than which is care for mothers and children under the people of Ireland. the age of five. The next six months are going to be really

All of these stresses have created an tough. People in Somalia know that people 43 environment where the health services back in Ireland are standing with them. That that we provide are under serious strain. is really important for them. It is important Our resources are obviously finite, but we for me too. The support we receive from do the best we can with what we have. For parishioners all over Ireland gives me great example, one nurse midwife carried out over energy. It gives me the hope to keep going.

Workers assist a woman to carry the supplies she has received.

Paul Healy is Trócaire’s country director in Somalia

For more information or to support Trócaire’s Lent campaign, visit www.trocaire.org/lent or phone 1850 408 408 ROI (0800 912 1200 NI)

REALITY CHECK

PETER McVERRY SJ

THE PRICE PAID BY WOMEN FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SOME “WERE LEFT WITH BROKEN BONES AND TEETH, BRUISING, HEAD INJURIES AND INTERNAL INJURIES AS A RESULT OF RAPE. SOME WOMEN EXPERIENCED MISCARRIAGE BECAUSE OF AN ASSAULT WHILE OTHERS WERE EXPERIENCING POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS, ANXIETY, DEPRESSION AND EXHAUSTION.”

The Christmas season is the most dangerous time of the year for a group of people in Irish society, namely those suffering from, or at risk of, domestic violence. The increased use of alcohol often leads to increased abuse in those households.

The pandemic has also increased the risk of abuse as restrictions result in more people confined to home.

Victims of domestic violence are among the most vulnerable groups in Irish society, because their plight, though very real and sometimes deadly, is often invisible. Those working with them, like Women’s Aid, describe the effects: “Women were left with broken bones and teeth, bruising, head injuries and internal injuries as a result of rape. Some women experienced miscarriage because of an assault while others were experiencing post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression and exhaustion.”

Many victims are afraid to leave home, for reasons including their belief that the abuser will follow through with the threats they have used to keep them trapped, that the abuser will find them and hurt them, or harm the children or kill the pets. The victims may not be able to safely escape or protect those they love. Furthermore, if they do manage to leave with the children, there may not be a domestic refuge locally to which they can go and, even if there is, it may be full. The rental and housing crisis may further reduce the few options available. If they have no family who can offer them refuge, they may face homelessness, with no access to money. Some women and children fleeing violence have no option but to return to their abusers.

Again, Women’s Aid reports, “Very consistently we hear about women who are being isolated from their network of support, friends, family, colleagues, and they live in fear for their lives because they will get very direct and sometimes very specific threats from their abusive partners. That might be threats with guns that are shown to them, with knives, other household implements, and increasingly we hear about women whose partners are speeding in cars and threatening to kill them and the children.”

In 2018, 1,138 women and 1,667 children were accommodated in a refuge. But 3,256 requests (nine a day) for a place were refused because the refuges were full. Funding cuts during the austerity have not been restored, despite an increased demand for services and an increase in “more complex cases”.

Ireland is obliged to have 472 places (one refuge space for every 10,000 people) for victims of domestic violence, following our ratification of the Istanbul Convention, but has only 141, all of which are provided by voluntary groups.

Sometimes clergy, counsellors or family members can be complicit in the ongoing violence, if their objective is to 'save' the couple’s relationship rather than ending the violence. The rationalisation that the abuser’s behaviour is caused by stress, alcohol, unemployment or other factors, and that the abuse will stop when those factors are addressed, may lead the victim and those counselling them to focus on the abuser’s problems rather than the victim’s. This may be particularly so if the abuse is intermittent, with the victim feeling that the relationship is a mix of good times, full of love, along with bad times of abusive behaviour, allowing the rationalisation that the abuser is basically good until something bad happens and then they just 'let off steam'.

Men may also be victims of domestic abuse. Those I have encountered were dominated by their female partner, who controlled their movements, and their money, verbally and psychologically abusing them constantly, destroying their self-esteem. They may be reluctant to speak out or leave for fear of losing access to the children, or their partner’s threat to bring her brothers down to 'sort him out'. Men suffering domestic violence are even more invisible than women, as they may feel too embarrassed or too ashamed to admit their plight and seek help.

The programme for Government describes an “epidemic of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence” but contains few actions to address it. We need a commitment from government, as an urgent priority, to provide at least one domestic refuge in every county, each with accommodation for at least 18 families.

For more information or to support the Peter McVerry Trust: www.pmvtrust.ie info@pmvtrust.ie +353 (0)1 823 0776

The ruins of Capernaum on the coast of the lake of Galilee

LET’S GO ELSEWHERE

FEBRUARY 07 Today’s gospel consists of three brief stories of events in the ministry of Jesus. They continue the account FIFTH SUNDAY IN of the first sabbath of the

ORDINARY TIME ministry of Jesus we began reading last week. After the synagogue service has ended, Jesus and his disciples go to the house of Simon.

Archaeological excavations in Capernaum have brought to light the remains of a firstcentury village. Over one of the houses, not far from the rather splendid synagogue that stills stands, a small church had been erected, probably in the early 300s. Quite likely, it was originally Peter’s house, small, and probably overcrowded with a family of several generations until the church was built. The sabbath meal was the fullest and most leisurely of the week. Cooking was forbidden on the sabbath, but the food was prepared in advance. Telling Jesus about the sick woman might have been a way of warning him not to expect too much by way of hospitality. When he cures her, she immediately assumes her role as the woman of the house, taking over the direction of the meal.

The second unit describes how, when sabbath was ended at sunset, the sick and possessed were brought to the house for healing. Capernaum was a small place, so word of how Peter’s mother-in-law was cured spread quickly. The house was soon crowded as others in need of healing crowded into it.

The third scene takes place at daybreak. Jesus has left the house in search of a quiet place in which to pray. The successful healings of the evening before may have given Peter the impression that if Jesus stays in Capernaum, people will flock to him. Jesus puts him straight: he has not come to be a faith-healer, but a wandering preacher, and the wandering has to begin today, leaving Capernaum behind

Today’s Readings

Job 7:1-4, 6-7; Ps 146; 1 Cor 9:16-19, 2223; Mk 1:29-39

IF YOU WILL, YOU CAN FEBRUARY MAKE ME CLEAN AGAIN!

14 The coronavirus has made us more conscious of how disease can spread by SIXTH SUNDAY IN social contact. The words ORDINARY TIME ‘leprosy’ and ‘leper’ are used in the Bible to cover a wide range of conditions. Some of them we would not even consider as medical conditions, such as moulds or mildew caused by dampness on clothing or on the walls of houses (Lev 16:55). Medical science in biblical times was primitive. Its only way of distinguishing between various forms of skin infections was how quickly they healed or how rapidly they spread. Just like quarantine with coronavirus, it was a wise precaution to keep

REPENT AND BELIEVE

21 ashes last Wednesday, it is likely that one of the prayers said by the priest or minister

OF LENT from today’s gospel – “Repent and believe the Good News!” Today’s gospel is the shortest of the three Gospel accounts of the temptations of Jesus. It is a spare, tense narrative, but as is often the case with Mark’s Gospel, every word is carefully chosen. He is "driven out" – compelled to go into the wilderness. In the land of Jesus, there is a sharp contrast between ‘the desert’ and ‘the sown’, the cultivated farmland where humans settle. By contrast, the desert is dry people who might be infected at a distance from the rest of the family or the wider community. Priests were the people who were trained to read the signs of a disease and who determined whether it was serious (first reading). Even relatively minor skin infections were feared. We catch this sense of panic and near despair in the man who approaches Jesus in today’s Gospel. Jesus’ action in stretching out his hands to touch the man as a sign of his sympathy and of his readiness to break boundaries is an important element in the story. If the Christian tradition does not have the power of Jesus to cure disease instantaneously, it learned from him the importance of cherishing the sick and making a place for them in the community. St Damien of Molokai spent many years working and barren, home to wild animals and inhospitable to humans. Yet the desert was Israel’s dwelling for 40 years between the Exodus from Egypt and entry into the Land of Promise. It is to the desert that God’s people will be sometimes driven when they have failed, so that they can learn to hear the voice of God once more:“therefore, I will now allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her” (Hos 2:14).

Mark does not specify the temptations to which Jesus was exposed in the desert. Satan is mentioned several times in the Old Testament as the tempter. He tempted David to take a census of the people (often a preliminary to going to war or increasing taxes). In the Book of Job, Satan tests the just man Job with unexpected suffering and loss, yet he will among lepers in a remote leper colony. When he finally contracted the disease, he began his homily the following Sunday with the words “We lepers …”. Jesus sends the man to the priest to receive the official certification of his cure but orders him to keep silent in the meantime. But if your world has been turned upside down by a healing you never thought possible, you cannot contain your excitement. The former leper spreads the news so enthusiastically that Jesus has to avoid inhabited places.

Today’s Readings

Lev 13:1-2, 44-46; Ps 31; 1 Cor 10:31-11:1;

FEBRUARY If you went to receive your

FIRST SUNDAY imposing them was taken

Mk 1:40-45 remain faithful. In the desert, Jesus also learns to depend on the providence of God – the angels ministered to him, just as they ministered to the prophet Elijah in the desert

The desert time is a boundary marker. With John dead, Jesus can begin his own ministry of preaching. His message is summed up in two very brief statements – the Kingdom of God is at last drawing near and to be ready for it, people are called to repentance, metanoia, the Greek word for it which means a change of heart and mind, a change of direction in our lives.

Today’s Readings

Gen 9:8-15; Ps 24; 1 Pet 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15

IT IS WONDERFUL FOR US TO BE HERE!

FEBRUARY Mountains are places where you see things 28 differently. When I was growing up in Belfast, I loved climbing Divis (less than 500 metres high) to see the whole city spread out in the valley below. Mark SECOND SUNDAY does not identify the mountain in this story, but it

OF LENT is believed to be Tabor, a round hill washed with historical memories of Israel’s history that stands above the fertile Jezreel Valley.

Jesus is making his final journey to Jerusalem. Within ten days or so, he and his disciples will have entered the darkness of his final days, culminating in his crucifixion on Calvary. In this brief episode at the top of the mountain, the sudden burst of light that makes his clothes “more dazzlingly white, whiter than any earthly bleacher could make them” is a prelude to the burst of light in the tomb at Easter in which a young man in a white robe will announce that he is risen.

Moses and Elijah also experienced moments of divine revelation on a holy mountain, Sinai or Horeb. Moses asked to see God’s face but he was told: “I shall put you in a cleft of the rock and shield you with my hand until I have gone past” (Ex 33:22) , since a human being could not bear the sight of the divine presence. On the same mountain, Elijah waited for the Lord to come, but the Lord was not in the fire or the earthquake that came, but in the light gentle murmur of the breeze.

Peter wants this moment to last, and offers to build three shelters for

Jesus and his guests, but it is over in a short time. Our Transfiguration moments usually only last a very short time, but they are enough to make us see things differently. From that moment on Tabor, the disciples will know that Jesus is different. It does not mean that they will always act as if they believed it. When he is arrested, they will desert him, and even Peter, after a weak display of bravado, will follow their example and slink off into the night.

As we reflect on today’s gospel during the week ahead, it might help us to discern the unexpected moments when the Lord reveals his presence to us.

Today’s Readings

Gen 22:1-2, 9-13, 15-18; Ps 115; Rom 8:31-34; Mk 9: 2-10

SOLUTIONS CROSSWORD No. 9 ACROSS: Across: 1. Adders, 5. Aeneid, 10. Minimum, 11. Lucifer, 12. Abel, 13. Tibet, 15. Edge, 17. Tap, 19. Menhir, 21. Fealty, 22. Austria, 23. Latent, 25. Greece, 28. Asp, 30. Cuba, 31. Emmet, 32. Elba, 35. Michael, 36. Trumpet, 37. Goblet, 38. Easter. DOWN: 2. Dungeon, 3. Elms, 4. Summit, 5. Asleep, 6. Neck, 7. Infidel, 8. Embalm, 9. Orrery, 14. Baptism, 16. Giant, 18. Heart, 20. Rut, 21. Fig, 23. Locums, 24. Tobacco, 26. Eclipse, 27. Exalts, 28. Amulet, 29. Pestle, 33. Saul, 34. Bugs. Winner of Crossword No. 9 Amy Doran, Dunboyne, County Meath.

ACROSS

1. The only Old Testament book completely missing from the Dead Sea Scrolls. (6) 5. "You cannot serve both God and ..." (Matthew and Luke) (6) 10. Extinct large, wild European ox. (7) 11. A public delivery of something memorised. (7) 12. The capital of Azerbaijan. (4) 13. Killer whales. (5) 15. Most populous city of Ukraine. (4) 17. May I have the edible tuber. (3) 19. A senior member of the Christian clergy. (6) 21. Earnest and grave. (6) 22. Wonderful things. (7) 23. "Cast a cold eye on life, on death, Horseman ..." (W. B. Yeats) (4,2) 25. Dominant colour of the Vatican City flag. (6) 28. Material from which metal can be extracted. (3) 30. False statements made with deliberate intent to deceive. (4) 31. A deep or seemingly bottomless chasm. (5) 32. Enquires, requests. (4) 35. Ancient two-handled storage jar. (7) 36. Magical or medicinal potions. (7) 37. A severe flood. (6) 38. Evil in nature or effect. (6) (6)

DOWN

2. Three of these and you're out. (7) 3. Cut a computer with rough or heavy blows. (4) 4. Form of devotion in which decades of Hail Marys are repeated. (6) 5. The older sister of Moses. (6) 6. Weapon of the Middle Ages and spice derived from nutmeg. (4) 7. To look in you need to be here. (7) 8. Tree with a swollen stem found in SubSaharan Africa. (6) 9. The number of Apostles before Matthias was added. (6) 14. Another name for Golgotha. (7) 16. Mausoleums, crypts. (5) 18. The red petals of these flowers represent Christs' sacrificial blood. (5) 20. Compensate for work done. (3) 21. Having a cunning or deceitful nature. (3) 23. Vertical structure for Lots' wife. (6) 24. A church tower and spire. (7) 26. Of a boat tilting to one side (7) 27. Stew is most sensible and knowledgeable. (6) 28. A layman living in a monastery without vows. (6) 29. Respect and admiration. (6) 33. Bean curd by another name. (4) 34. A cash register. (4)

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