Fr. Rick Frechette C. P.

Brother Sun

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Dear family and friends,As I write these words, the violent rule of gangs in Port au Prince in increasing, and reaching our neighborhood, which is also the neighborhood of US Embassy.

The Embassy is, during these very days, evacuating all non-emergency personnel.The effect on us is that our hospital now receives many warlike trauma and gunshot injuries, especially since the specialty hospital nearby that was managing them closed, precisely because of armed attack on their hospital.We cannot get surgeons to come to our area. It is a red zone. And like many hospitals in Port au Prince, we cannot even keep the competent people we already have, since many are fleeing Haiti to raise their families in a safer country.We are not capable of managing high level trauma. It means we stabilize the gunshot injured as best as we can and transfer them to a private surgery center at our expense, for which we have no budget but must act to save lives.We are facing the worse crisis we have ever faced in 34 years of dedicated mission here, and the consequences are not only the disintegration of a nation and all the institutions that constitute civilization, but the people are floundering in a tsunami of despair. The dangerous sickness of despair surrounds us like a violent sea in a hurricane.And yet amid all of this, there was Raphael.

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Song of Ascension

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Dear friends and family,

We found the five of them under a Mango tree last night, to which we had been led by bandits after a release deal was cut by their families.

We were the “guarantors” that the ransom given by their families would achieve their freedom. (This is, in fact, almost never the case, until multiple ransoms are paid.)

It was a dark 10pm, made up of many kinds of darkness.

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The Rose named Laetare

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Dear Family and Friends,

Thilus just came back to us today, taking THREE MONTHS to get from Jacmel to Port au Prince.

He is 2 years old, his belly is tight like a drum and nearly bursting from an enormous and sick liver,
he has grey and flaking skin, he is weak and exhausted.
Jacmel is usually a FEW HOURS from Port au Prince by car. A little bit more by bus.

But not when your bus and everyone in it is KIDNAPPED crossing Martissant, on roads totally controlled by thieves,
and especially if there is no one on earth who can pay your ransom.

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“Stay with it”: Letter from a Disaster

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Dear friends,

I write this letter fully aware of the continued devastation of the war in Ukraine, with so many serious consequences and even worries of nuclear war.

I am also very shocked and saddened by the tremendous destruction and loss of life by Hurricane Ian in Florida.

I am following with deep sympathy the destruction by the powerful storms devastating most of the countries in Central America, and the ongoing plight of so many refugees in that area and worldwide.

If you are reading this, it’s because the people of Haiti are also important to you, as they are to me. I have never in my life seen such a confluence of destructive forces as are afflicting the people here. There really are no words to describe what is happening.

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Epiphany, and the Flight into Egypt

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While quietly crossing the threshold from a most difficult year into a (hopefully) better year, I lit a simple fire in an old tire rim, and with Orion twinkling in the darkness above, I contemplated the religious icon that accompanies these words.

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Ransoms & Ripeness

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Fr. Frechette has been writing regular updates from Haiti since the earthquake on August 14th. What follows are his two latest missives, starting with his most recent, which is marked by an undeniable urgency. His earlier update has an up ending that should give readers a genuine lift since Fr. Frechette’s good faith is the opposite of beamishness. His invocations of viridians in that first note made your editor think of Lorca’s Gypsy Ballad:

Green, how I want you green
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.

Maybe “Romance Sonámbulo” isn’t quite apt for a priest, but Fr. Frechette is large (and Lorca’s mountains and sea seem right for Haiti). Fr. Frechette may not be forever young but he is surely unwithered.

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The Riderless Horse (Letter from Port au Prince)

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The year was 1963. The name of the horse was Black Jack.

Even for a 10 year old, it was both moving and troubling to see the horse with no rider following the coffin of President John Kennedy–with a spirited strut, yet not easily controlled.

The horse with the empty saddle is an ancient symbol of poignant absence.

The horse without a master, the nation without a leader, the body without a soul.

We are living the painful and dangerous days after the brutal killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise. The horse has no rider, and does not know where to turn.

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The Living Jesus and the “Monk’s Alphabet”

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Jesus had a way of looking at things that was very far from the ordinary, even contradictory to common sense.

All of his careful teachings and powerful examples served the purpose of helping us to see clearly, to understand, and to discern as if our lives depended on it, because they do. Even beyond the grave.

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