In my missionary years in Peru, sowing was always surrounded by tears, as the farmer who opens, with sweat, the furrows in the earth and places the seed with care to defend it from adverse winds knows! It was not easy to proclaim the Gospel of Christ - mission work has never been easy - because it had to include so many aspects: health, education, catechesis, attention to children, careful care of marginalized women, protection of the sick, defense of lands, communities and people who seemed to have lost the right to the human dignity that we all have....
In the bottom of our hearts, I recognize our own limitations. We could have done more, mitigated the hunger, the sickness, the death of those who came close to us, who lived next to us, who suffered in the quiet nights of their lives a pain that we could hardly discover.
On December 27, 1978 we inaugurated and blessed the new "San Martin de Porres" cemetery in Puerto Maldonado. The old cemetery had become too small. Just a year later, I felt the curiosity to visit the cemetery. I have engraved in my mind the image of a real forest of crosses. I was overwhelmed when I counted the white crosses whose graves delicately guarded the remains of children: 376 white crosses; in just one year, and in a small town! I also counted the black crosses of adults: there were 92. Today, as I travel through my years in the territory of the Vicariate that the Lord entrusted to me, I feel a kind of remorse. Perhaps if we had put more effort, if we had been better priests, if the lives of those precious children had been more deeply rooted in our personal and community feelings, they would not have died and would continue to bring joy to our lives.
I recognize that we could have done more in the broad fields that pastoral life offered us. Often we should have spoken more and kept quiet less, especially in the face of the distressing problems of our people. The scent of the orange blossom, which every year invaded our lives in the jungle, faded quickly with the wind; the words did not. We lost beautiful occasions: in the daily aspects of the lives of the faithful, of the religious, of the laity. They were their lives, our lives, the lives of our peoples. Today, before God, I believe that, perhaps, if they had had a good shepherd, the achievements would have been more satisfactory. Sometimes I think that we were on the verge of dying of thirst when we had already reached the fountain of crystalline water.
Those who sowed in tears... Jesus of Nazareth had announced to his disciples the sadness that awaited them with his passion and death. Once the cataclysm of the passion had begun, they lamented because they saw how Christ was seized, how he was humiliated, brought to an iniquitous trial, condemned and crucified. They watched as, to finish off the enormous injustice, one of the soldiers thrust the spear into his side seeking the weakened heart of Jesus. There were, that Friday, many hidden and silent tears from those who contemplated the end of the Master, Lord of Life. He did not deserve to have ended that way. The sowing continued its course: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains unfruitful; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (Jn 12:24). And the Master went before, and his body was buried, to rise again with unusual strength before the astonished gaze of his disciples. And those men were giants of sowing in tears.
The mission field is surrounded by a huge fence of thorns. It is difficult to move along these winding roads; life in the missionary land is difficult. All of us missionaries have had to work, to suffer, to suffer. We did it with enthusiasm because we believed that one day the fate of our marginalized brothers and sisters would change. In this life there is no success without hard work, there is no progress without sacrificed effort. And we chose a difficult route, walking incredible paths, striving to find resources, putting our own health as a guarantee, working with a sense of missionary honesty, looking with faith to the fountain that one day we could find to quench the thirst for life that was in the possession of the weak. Our lives were vast fields where we had to sow in tears. And we sowed hopes, eternity, illusion for the harvest, songs of celebration, anticipated joy. We sowed dreaming of the harvest, often with tears in our eyes and in our hearts, because to be able to sing with true joy it is necessary to cry. But we felt passion. When it began to rain in our jungle, everything was filled with the green smell of the sprouts. The tide of clouds would arrive and lay on the green mantle, transforming the colors into messengers of peace and tranquility. We witnessed this many times. For all that we suffered and lived, I thank God.
Bishop Emeritus of Puerto Maldonado (Peru)
