It is so painful to see the lives of young people in Barrancabermeja collapse, how their strength is extinguished by bullets. The heart is squeezed when imagining a mother, a father, desperately running to see if the body lying in the street is their son, daughter, sister, brother. How many times have we cried at home reading the news, listening to the neighbor who has just lost everything. We live so close to the pain that, at one point, we said we were able to go out and resist: to face death for the need to live in peace. We think those bullets can also reach us, and we promise ourselves that we are going to say something, to do something, so that they stop the killing.
What are we, then, if we prefer to stay still, when we have the opportunity to shout that we do not agree with death? What are we, if we give up protecting and defending life, hoping that other people will do it instead? The meaning of humanity has been lost. We are killing ourselves with the indifference and fear that paralyze us. We do not understand what it really means to demand life. We have not understood that breaking the silence can stop the murders and injustices. It hurts to defend life, but it hurts more to lose it. So let us not lose hope, and instead rise up to confront, hand in hand, the violence that wants us to remain silent.
We ask for your prayers for all the people and families who have lost relatives or friends to the armed conflict in Colombia, in this silent, tearful war.
