Photos from the University chapel at Saint Joseph's University depiciting the candles representing the 406 murder victims in Philadelphia in 2006. The mother of one murder victim, the unforgettable Richard Johnson stands with her son's friends, Sherman and Sal, both sophomores at SJU.
A Remembrance of Philadelphia’s Victims of Violence
FEBRUARY 19, 2007 7 PM UNIVERSITY CHAPEL
We are here, brothers and sisters, to grieve but to grieve creatively focused on the future of our city and our young people.
Being a pastor in a Philadelphia urban church in recent years, I had all that I needed of grieving. There is Marcus, promising student, reduced for life to a childlike state in a wheelchair because of a boy and a gun. There is Paul, who had been a steady member of our church youth club. He now sits in jail because he did not learn how to deal with anger except with a gun. There is Lena who sang in the church choir like a nightingale. A recent college grad, a victim of domestic abuse, Lena was surrounded at her burial by her sorority sisters who sang through their grief. There is Brian with the split personality: a loving father on the one hand, a crazed addict on the other. He pulled a gun on police and they had no choice. There is Troy, so well-liked and handsome, a stupid innocent hanging out on streets where he did not belong. At his funeral his teenage friends, boys and girls, wailed uncontrollably. Then Latrelle whose addicted body could not survive her attempt to stay clean. And Jeffrey, whom I visited in the intensive care unit the first time he was shot. He returned to the streets and did not make it the second time. And our very own Richard who should be sitting here with his Saint Joseph’s University classmates as a college sophomore. Like the 406 murdered after them: Lena, Troy, Jeffrey, and Richard, like the other victims of the street: Paul and Brian, Latrelle and Marcus, they all came into our world surrounded by love. God destined them, too, to be people of love and service in their families and communities. The two of them still living, one in jail and one in a wheelchair have some purpose in life. May the other six, too, have their purpose among us.
Back in the slavery times of Egypt under old Pharoah, the slaves grieved their lot and their suffering. There was self-pity in their grief. There was complaint in their grief. But their grief was not a grief of resignation. They did not resign themselves to their fate. They knew that God did not create them and love them just for the slavery of making bricks for old Pharoah.
God made them for some higher purpose. Their grieving, their self-pity, their complaint to their God was the beginning of their liberation. They named as clearly as they could the source of their grief and God reached out and helped them. After their suffering and their journey God showed them a new reality that amazed them. They were free.
Brothers and sisters, the politicians and police can only help us so much; whoever wants to be Moses among us can do only so much leading. We need to step up in our churches and schools; we who are able must reach back to our younger brothers and sisters and give them a hand so that they can join us on this journey, a journey to free ourselves from the scourge of death that plagues our land.
Others have made this journey. In their grief, so many loving people have created new ways of reaching out to our community. I mention only one that I know well, the Russell Byers Charter School, a great new school under the leadership of Principal Salome Thomas-El, a school born out of the grief of the Byers family in the wake of their husband and father’s murder on the streets of Philadelphia.
May God continue to lead us who grieve to such amazing places where we find balm for our grief and peace and healing for our community.
We asked the mother of a victim of the streets to come forward and be with us this evening. Catherine Young gave birth to the irreplaceable Richard Johnson some twenty years ago. He was a lively person from birth, unforgettable. After his murder on the streets in the summer of 2005, hundreds of Saint Joseph’s Prep boys, his schoolmates, and young people from Richard’s South Philly neighborhood crowded the Church of Gesu for his funeral service. We thank his mother for sharing her grief with us then and in the many months that have passed. And we thank her for joining us this evening and sharing a few words about her hopes in the wake of such tragedy.
FEBRUARY 19, 2007 7 PM UNIVERSITY CHAPEL
We are here, brothers and sisters, to grieve but to grieve creatively focused on the future of our city and our young people.
Being a pastor in a Philadelphia urban church in recent years, I had all that I needed of grieving. There is Marcus, promising student, reduced for life to a childlike state in a wheelchair because of a boy and a gun. There is Paul, who had been a steady member of our church youth club. He now sits in jail because he did not learn how to deal with anger except with a gun. There is Lena who sang in the church choir like a nightingale. A recent college grad, a victim of domestic abuse, Lena was surrounded at her burial by her sorority sisters who sang through their grief. There is Brian with the split personality: a loving father on the one hand, a crazed addict on the other. He pulled a gun on police and they had no choice. There is Troy, so well-liked and handsome, a stupid innocent hanging out on streets where he did not belong. At his funeral his teenage friends, boys and girls, wailed uncontrollably. Then Latrelle whose addicted body could not survive her attempt to stay clean. And Jeffrey, whom I visited in the intensive care unit the first time he was shot. He returned to the streets and did not make it the second time. And our very own Richard who should be sitting here with his Saint Joseph’s University classmates as a college sophomore. Like the 406 murdered after them: Lena, Troy, Jeffrey, and Richard, like the other victims of the street: Paul and Brian, Latrelle and Marcus, they all came into our world surrounded by love. God destined them, too, to be people of love and service in their families and communities. The two of them still living, one in jail and one in a wheelchair have some purpose in life. May the other six, too, have their purpose among us.
Back in the slavery times of Egypt under old Pharoah, the slaves grieved their lot and their suffering. There was self-pity in their grief. There was complaint in their grief. But their grief was not a grief of resignation. They did not resign themselves to their fate. They knew that God did not create them and love them just for the slavery of making bricks for old Pharoah.
God made them for some higher purpose. Their grieving, their self-pity, their complaint to their God was the beginning of their liberation. They named as clearly as they could the source of their grief and God reached out and helped them. After their suffering and their journey God showed them a new reality that amazed them. They were free.
Brothers and sisters, the politicians and police can only help us so much; whoever wants to be Moses among us can do only so much leading. We need to step up in our churches and schools; we who are able must reach back to our younger brothers and sisters and give them a hand so that they can join us on this journey, a journey to free ourselves from the scourge of death that plagues our land.
Others have made this journey. In their grief, so many loving people have created new ways of reaching out to our community. I mention only one that I know well, the Russell Byers Charter School, a great new school under the leadership of Principal Salome Thomas-El, a school born out of the grief of the Byers family in the wake of their husband and father’s murder on the streets of Philadelphia.
May God continue to lead us who grieve to such amazing places where we find balm for our grief and peace and healing for our community.
We asked the mother of a victim of the streets to come forward and be with us this evening. Catherine Young gave birth to the irreplaceable Richard Johnson some twenty years ago. He was a lively person from birth, unforgettable. After his murder on the streets in the summer of 2005, hundreds of Saint Joseph’s Prep boys, his schoolmates, and young people from Richard’s South Philly neighborhood crowded the Church of Gesu for his funeral service. We thank his mother for sharing her grief with us then and in the many months that have passed. And we thank her for joining us this evening and sharing a few words about her hopes in the wake of such tragedy.
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