Advertisements ad

November 9 , 2008

Victims remembered as violence escalates

By Pam DeFiglio

CONTRIBUTOR

As Chicago surpassed New York and Los Angeles for number of murders this year, Catholics in the city attended an annual memorial Mass for victims of violence at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, 4500 S. Ashland Ave., in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Some of those who attended the Oct. 27 Mass lost a loved one a few years ago but the pain is still fresh. Six years after her son was killed, Lucida Montelongo said she struggles with the loss daily.

“I couldn’t cry for the first two years,” she said. “At first, I wanted to kill. Anger is normal. It’s mixed emotions. But as time passes by, your emotions change.”

After an assailant shot 26-year-old Arthur Montelongo to death in 2002, Lucida Montelongo lost interest in talking to people and performing the routines of daily life, like running a household. With time, the intensity of the emotions diminished, she said. But Montelongo, her husband and her four remaining children still wrestle through their grief with tears, a lack of joy in life and what she describes as feeling “emotionally lost.”

To cope, she attends monthly healing circles put on by Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation, a ministry for offenders, at-risk youth and people who have lost loved ones to violence. It’s based in Chicago’s South-side Back of the Yards neighborhood, where gang violence happens frequently.

Crosses to remember

On Oct. 27, Auxiliary Bishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller came to Immaculate Heart of Mary Church to celebrate Precious Blood Ministry’s annual Memorial Mass. A few days before, on Oct. 24, the Sun-Times reported that Chicago posted 426 killings, compared with 417 in New York and 302 in L.A.

Before Mass began, volunteers invited attendees to write the names of loved ones lost to violence on 10-inch tall white wooden crosses.

Precious Blood Father David Kelly, one of the priests who founded the ministry, welcomed participants and said, “The violence has not stopped, but we work for peace.”

Bishop Garcia-Siller delivered his homily in Spanish and stopped every few minutes to translate what he had said into English. He expressed worry that the nation’s economic instability means more violence will occur. “But we can let Jesus find an answer to it,” he said. “Jesus was able to find through his death an answer to life and give us hope, because he knew we would face many moments of death.”

‘You are precious’

More than 200 people, including many families, listened as he acknowledged his own angry human reaction when he hears about acts of violence. “We get tired and angry — we become like the offenders — filled with violence,” he said. “I can feel it in myself when I hear these stories, filled with feelings that are not from God. And I have to turn back to God.

“This violence is taking our love, so let us love one another more. Let us pray more and listen more. You are precious.”

After the homily, two young women slowly carried a large wooden cross, about five feet high, up the center aisle of the church and positioned it on a black fabric screen placed to one side of the sanctuary. Congregants filed up to the screen and affixed the small white crosses bearing their lost ones’ names to the memorial. Many also placed photos of the deceased on display shelves.

After Mass ended, Garcia-Siller praised Precious Blood Ministry’s work with survivors, explaining, “We need to listen with loving care to people’s stories, and not to judge who was right and who was wrong.” Such caring is healing for those who have suffered violent loss, he said.