After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. John 17:1-5

We met him when he was only nine years old. I can hardly believe that was ten years ago. He never was a happy child. This was not because he was homeless. Unfortunately, there are many children like him but they are usually happy. Vinicius belongs to a growing number of children who are first generation homeless. In other words, he was born homeless and has slept in the streets all his life. The only time he slept within four walls was in the juvenile detention center but I am jumping ahead of myself here. The fortunate thing about most of these children is that they are unaware of their dire situation. Most of the time, they live a happy and carefree life but not Vinicius. It could be due to early childhood depression. I am not qualified to make that call. I am just guessing. I do not think even he could tell us why. We tried to get him out of his shell but were never quite successful. The only thing we managed to do was convince him to play badminton. It wasn’t exactly the best option. It’s an individual sport even though played in pairs. It lacks the personal interaction which Vinicius needed. I don’t recall him exchanging a word with us throughout that time. I am not sure if he ever thanked us for anything. It wasn’t that he was rude. He just never learned any of these things. Besides, saying thanks in the streets sometimes can be a degrading and humiliating thing for the homeless. It reminds them of their demeaning situation.

His mother, from our perspective, displays signs of someone who has serious mental issues. Despite her setbacks, she does her best for her children. Working with the homeless made us realize that our ideas of how to raise a family are not universally applicable. The homeless have families and their reality is completely different from our middle class background. The things we think are proper and right may not work in their reality. Suffice it to say that Vinicius’ mother does her best like any mother does. The problem is that she has limited resources and she shouldn’t be judged for this. For us, this is a learning process; not to judge, that is. There are some things we only learn when we are directly involved in the lives of people.

She spends most of her time begging so that she could feed the family. They receive financial aid from the government which is only enough for a week’s groceries at the most dubious looking grocery stores. Besides Vinicius, she has four other younger girls. Vinicius is the oldest and he was a sister close to his age who is a “little person”. Someone in her condition is very rare among the homeless children. As we know, children can be very cruel and our homeless children are not any different. From a young age, Vinicius has been a support to his sister. We watched these two siblings grow up from a distance. Their mother tried to keep all her children together. She was successful with the youngest three. Vinicius and Ana Paula got lost among the rest of the homeless children. He started sniffing paint thinner and then eventually graduated to harder drugs. It didn’t take long for him to engage in crime. Throughout this time, he hardly interacted with us. It was as if he forgotten all the time we spent with him when he was a child.

Then one day he got caught for stealing and landed up in the juvenile detention center. His crime was petty theft and he was imprisoned for just a couple of months. During the worst period of the quarantine, I was in the streets with the teens and heard someone called out my name. I could hardly recognize him at first. He looked older and had put on some weight. He shook my hand and said that he was just released from the detention center. He did not say anything else. I don’t know why he decided to acknowledge my presence after all these years ignoring us. Maybe he realized that we were a permanent and stable presence in his life. Ever since that day, he would come to us and shake our hands but never would spend time with us. He still had a sad demeanor.

I am not really sure but I think the first time I saw him smile was when we played a game of Uno recently. It happened a few months ago. He and his sister approached me and asked if they could play a game together. They suggested Uno. As we were playing, they reminded me that we used to play together when they were young. I was surprised that they remembered. They lost almost every hand but didn’t mind it. They were having a good time and laughed each time I played the winning card. For the first time in years, I saw them behaving like happy children but they are young adults now. It took us almost ten years to see these young people smile. Something else happened that day. A barrier was overcome. They remembered who we are and what role we played in their lives. To be frank, we are not sure what it is exactly but Vinicius and his sister decided that it was a relevant one.

Ever since this blessed day, Vinicius talks with us. Sometimes he insists on playing a game. He has a girlfriend now. She is just like him, a first generation homeless teen. Recently they got into an argument and Vinicius hit her. We noticed a bruise on her face. She told us at first that she had a fall but we knew that she was lying. The other teens told her to tell us the truth. They said that we would understand. Vinicius admitted that it was him. We were a little disturbed. We waited for a few days before approaching the subject. I thought about Vinicius a lot that particular day. Both he and his girlfriend grew up in the streets where violence is the norm. Every thing is done and achieved through violence. The police are violent. Those involved in crime are violent. The kids establish their space among each other through violence. His mother used violence to discipline him. It was the only language he knew. Few days later, we saw them again and he wanted to play a game with us. He and his girlfriend were obviously reconciled as they were very affectionate with each other. After our game, we called Vinicius and his girlfriend aside and told him that he shouldn’t use violence against anyone especially with people whom he loved. We could see that both of them were listening intently. I explained that you drive people away from you when you use violence. He assured us that he understood and I believe him. He knew that what we were saying was true because he felt it in his soul, too. After this talk, our relationship got even better. Now, Vinicius and his girlfriend go out of their way to talk to us. They know that we like them and the truth is we are very proud of our relationship with them. It is as if we received a special gift from God.

I always found the above gospel text hard to interpret for our daily lives. The best I could do was to resort to doctrinal interpretation. However, our interaction with Vinicius and his sister and even his girlfriend whose name is Isabel shed valuable light on these verses. Jesus came to show us eternal life. These are moments where we sense God’s eternal love working and manifesting itself in our midst. Jesus is the incarnated expression of this Love. He is our guide to identify Gods love in this world. It is not an idea nor a concept. It is something concrete which can be grasped with our whole being. Our relationship with these young people has opened our eyes to see Jesus present in our midst. However, not in the usual way. Sometimes, I have said this too, people say that we see Jesus in the person. We have seen Vinicius at his best and worst. Therefore, it is hard to say that we see Jesus manifested in his life. However, we can safely say that when we are together, we sense the sacramental presence in a real and concrete manner in our midst. He becomes real beyond words and He brings hope to our hearts. His presence transforms us and makes us become more open to power of Eternal Love.

We seriously never thought that this sad and distant boy would become dear and precious to us. Now we enjoy seeing him. He smiles when he sees us. Joy has taken root and is growing in him. I have to say all this has convinced me beyond the shadow of doubt that the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to see the presence of Jesus even when everything around us appears hopeless. The glory of Christ can never be snuffed out in this world.