Has someone ever refused to accept your greeting of peace at Mass? How would you feel if they did? There are people who are consistently rejected by society, to whom the "Oh no, not you!" message is consistently given.My friend Liam gives some time every week to an organization which reaches out to HIV/Aids sufferers, and the other day he told me about an afternoon with Len. This is a man in his forties, child of a loving family, but who has made a mess of his life.
He is homeless and has been thrown out of one hostel after another because he robs, takes too much alcohol and other drugs, is fiercely quarrelsome and aggressive, and carries the marks of Aids in his pale and broken body. Liam has become friendly with him, though he is a prickly companion.
One day recently they had arranged to meet. Len was three hours late, but Liam had set aside the afternoon for this, and with the help of mobile phones he eventually located Len in O'Connell Street in Dublin. They wanted somewhere to sit down over a glass or a cup, but as they made the round of pubs and cafes, a pattern emerged.
Liam would go in first, but would hear a row behind him as bouncers or security men recognized Len and turned him away - and he never left without protest. In the end they found a seat on the street where they talked, and Liam produced a packet of cigarettes, which Len pocketed avidly.
Rejection
Liam may sound like a Good Samaritan, but it is hard for him to think well of himself. At the Sign of Peace in a Dublin suburban church, he offered his hand to his neighbours on right hand and left, then turned to the person behind him, a man some twenty years his junior, a face he did not recognize. There was a horrible moment of rejection. The man looked at Liam, said Oh no, not you! and turned away.
Liam suspected the reason. He has been convicted and imprisoned for sexually abusing pupils when he was a teacher, and he thinks that this man was once a boy whom he abused. Even though the kiss of peace is meant to be a moment of reconciliation and forgiveness, Liam does not blame the man for rejecting his hand. He cannot guess what wounds the victim carries from the abuse, nor what anger the boy felt for years against his abuser.
Abiding sorrow
Is Liam a menace to society? Probably not. Like many of those who are caught, punished and treated, he is unlikely to re-offend. The research into the treatment of convicted paedophiles is complex and controversial: some studies indicate that over 85% never re-offend; others put the figure lower.
Liam keeps himself at a distance from any contact with young people. He is deeply ashamed and contrite, and lives in a state of compunction, which is an abiding sorrow for sin.
Francis de Sales used to say: Find a crevice in your soul and fill it with compunction. You may grow there any virtue you please.
In Liam's case his compunction has led to a life of useful service sustained by regular prayer.
Like many a saint (think of Augustine and Ignatius Loyola), he is a good man who has sinned sexually; but his sin and criminal offence was one that leaves particularly deep marks on its victims, and rouses hysteria in the general public, fanned by hate-treatment in the tabloid press.
Lepers
Liam was sent for intensive treatment in an English centre, with two results. He felt the 'treatment' there as brutal, intrusive and unhelpful. But his companions there, many of them Irish, have remained his friends, and they continue to meet every week and support one another through their continuing trials. When society treats you as a leper, the company of other lepers can be precious.
Liam served his term in an Irish prison and used all the considerable help (training in a range of skills) that it offered. In prison, as in the English centre, it was the support of friends that kept him from despair.
So, when he came out and started to put new order on his life, he took some trouble to visit fellow-prisoners who were still behind bars. It could be difficult, bussing down the country, and going through the sometimes humbling scrutiny as you are let into the visiting area.
One day recently, as he waited to be admitted, a prison officer recognized him and called out, 'Aren't you an ex-prisoner? You are not allowed to visit.'
Liam appealed by letter to the prison governor but was turned down.
There may well be reasons for the regulation, but the brutal publicity of the officer's remark, like the rejection of his handshake at the sign of peace, tested Liam sorely, and made him feel that he can never escape the identity of ex-prisoner and past abuser.
Under a cloud
There is so much more to Liam than that, but he finds it hard to identify with all that is healthy and loving in himself. When he told me about the afternoon with Len, I felt humbled.
This was compassion at its best, offering friendship to somebody who needed that moment of respect but could not show appreciation. Yet Liam himself lives under a cloud, in constant fear.
By dint of hard searching, he has found useful work, cooks and cleans for his community (he is a religious brother), and tries to sustain a sense of God's love in his prayer.
His hardest task is not so much the fearful sense that the law may reach out for him again, as combating the bitterness and cynicism which his experience can stir in himself.
We have not learned to live with such people as fellow-citizens in a Christian community.
As always, we fall back on the life of Jesus. He faced rejection by the religious leaders of his people, who stirred up hatred against him, and framed him with false allegations.
If he could maintain his calm and love through Calvary and the weeks that preceded it, his example can support and inspire those who like him are accused and punished, but unlike him, are sometimes guilty.
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