The high indexes of juvenile delinquency, more and more afflicting each day, attest to the failure of culture, in the face of the problem challenge, which becomes a whip, vigorously applied to the human creature.
The needy minor, who assumes antisocial behavior, is the poignant victim of the imbalances that shake the structures of the earth community.
Sincere studies that research the causes of children in neglect, should not only dwell on the socio-economic, sociopolitical factors, responsible for the depopulation of the countryside and the consequent densification of urban centers; the under-employment and odd jobs; the promiscuous and unhealthy slums; the ignorance; the sex without responsibility, but also the lack of love that spreads everywhere, making creatures indifferent to the most primary and urgent problems and needs of their neighbor.
This drama does not only belong to one people, but to most of the countries that make up humanity.
It is not an exclusive result of economic misery, since the morally deprived minor is found in so-called affluent societies, presenting the wounds resulting from the situation in which they find themselves.
Certainly, the issue requires further examination in order to find appropriate solutions. However, until specialized resources can be applied, the experience of love should be tried, considering the serious occurrence as belonging to everyone, as it is, rather than just to administrators and governments.
Each and every application in favor of the needy child becomes an investment of multiplied blessings.
Unnecessarily, remedial measures will be taken against violence and aggressiveness, without incurring identical unfortunate attitudes, achieving nothing in relation to the future, which looks bleak.
The therapy should be preventive, avoiding the spread of the crime, before the angry punishment against the viscerally ill.
The work cannot be carried out under the commotion of the vile events that swarm in the sensationalist periodicals and multiply in the streets and homes of the world. Rather, examined with the feelings of fraternal piety and solidarity that we all owe each other and that is a serious commitment to the new generations.
The over-abundance of some, which is responsible for the misery of many, should not expect its victims to rebel, taking by the fury of hatred what is due to them by the natural imposition of love, without destroying, in its bases, the commendable cultural, ethical and social patrimonies of the present time, acquired by hard work, in the long succession of defeated millennia.
The most valuable human endeavor is love, and the highest achievement of life is man in his growth process, in the direction of Life.
In every delinquent of today there is, in desperation, the minor who was abandoned to his or her fate yesterday.
The future of humanity will depend on how the child of today is treated.
It is not only just to fight against crime, but to work to eradicate it at its roots; nor only to invoke against the errors of society, failing to contribute effectively to prevent their proliferation, until extirpating them from the social organism.
The share to offer to the needy minor is part of the debt we all owe to the blooming of the future.
All citizens, religious or not, are summoned to the crusade of love, in favor of the needy child, and no one can excuse himself, under the pretext of not having the resources to contribute.
Simply wanting to help is already of relevant value, beginning with the kind act of smiling at a child and dignifying him with attention, offering him a friendly word, at the same time making an effort to foster in consciences respect for the man of the future. Working alone or in a group, so that the day will soon come when the cult of love of neighbor will not be exercised for fear of being victimized by those whom negligence and selfishness have victimized.
Love today and help too.
Prevent evil now with simultaneous positive action.
The child in misery, who spies on the adult in opulence, sooner or later will seek, unfortunately by wrong methods, what we have to give him through the proper feeling of good.
Everyone in the human community is entitled to the bare minimum to live with decency and freedom. To deny such a concession is to conspire against one’s neighbor’s happiness and one’s own peace, now or later.
Let us do our part, as small as it may seem, by starting this crusade of love, which has been postponed, and which, if not accomplished, will take us to the road of suffering and solitude through negligence and foolishness.
Today shines the light of a beautiful opportunity that will become the blessed sun of tomorrow, so that the darkness of evil will be definitively removed from the Earth, with perennial clarity of peace in minds and hearts.
BENEDITA FERNANDES
(Psychographed page by Divaldo Pereira Franco, in Araçatuba, SP, at the home of Célia and Cesar Perri, on November 20, 1979. Published in “Dama da caridade”, by Antonio Cesar Perri de Carvalho, 1st edition 1982).
