On the Feast of Holy Innocents at the end of 1990, I went to the Philippines. It was my first visit to the developing world and no matter how much I had tried to prepare for what was to come, I couldn’t cope with the reality of what I met.
Seeking somewhere to pray before going to Victoria Station for the journey to Gatwick, I had stepped into Westminster Abbey, only to be confronted by a demand for payment. Deciding that the Church of England wasn’t much interested in praying, I went instead to Westminster Cathedral, where a beautiful Latin Mass for the feast day was being sung. There were clouds of incense and a sense of the transcendent.
A day later it all seemed a travesty of the Gospel, as I travelled through the streets of Manila, I wondered what abbeys and cathedrals had to do with anything.
It was a haunting trip, people living on the streets, people living on the city dump, people with nothing. A priest who spoke for the poor was murdered and we went to his wake, his bishop said that unless people were like the priest, they were not Christians at all.
Returning in late January, I had repeated flashbacks, panic attacks in the early hours of the morning. In retrospect, the taking of the anti-malarial drug, Larium might not have helped, although it was the best option and came with a warning.
I devised a strategy for coping with the attacks: I imagined being in a refugee camp with a dying child, trying to conjure up each detail; I then looked around at my five bedroomed Victorian Rectory, I counted each thing I had, I then thought on my greatest treasures of all, my wife and baby son. The attacks would be dispelled and I would return to sleep.
The panic attacks mercifully went away but the thought process remained useful. It has been a day with some horrible things, but then when I look at the pictures from Darfur, what do I know of anything horrible?
I look around now and there are so many good things. May God be with those who really need him.