“Will Your compassion fall upon my soul like a gentle touch, O Lord… as a thirst for Your mercy?”
These lines, praying that God may dwell peacefully in a wounded heart and console a silently weeping soul, are not merely poetry. They are the cry rising from the depths of thousands of orphaned children across the world.
Punch: The Pain of the World
Recently, the image of a baby monkey named Punch, abandoned by its mother and trapped in lonely isolation, stirred the conscience of the world. Born at the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, Punch was rejected by its mother. To comfort the grieving infant, caretakers gave it a small stuffed toy.
The sight of Punch clutching that toy to its chest as though it were its mother revealed something profound, a deep hunger for love. The emptiness in those eyes touched millions of hearts across the globe.
Memories from Nairobi
That image took me back nearly twenty years to my days in Nairobi. I had the opportunity to serve as a volunteer at a children’s home run by the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa.
It was a refuge for children abandoned or lost on the streets of Nairobi. Babies with no mother, no father, no one to call their own. Volunteers from many parts of the world cared for them, and the Sisters nurtured them with maternal love.
Soon the children would begin calling the Sisters “mother” and the volunteers “father.” They would sit on their laps, hold their hands, and run to them when they cried. The children did not know these were not their biological parents. Their love was pure and unquestioning.
But there was another side to that love, a deep recurring pain.
When volunteers returned to their home countries, the children would weep inconsolably, as though they had lost someone dear forever. Years later, when the Sisters themselves were transferred to other missions, the children experienced the same grief again, losing a mother once more.
A cycle of repeated abandonment.
Invisible Sacrifices
There is also another sacrifice we often fail to see, the immense emotional burden carried by the Sisters and caregivers.
To absorb the tears and trauma of hundreds of children day after day is not easy. They give their lives entirely to these little ones, often suppressing their own exhaustion and heartbreak. Caring for so many vulnerable lives simultaneously brings enormous responsibility and emotional strain. Yet they continue to provide a shelter of love without complaint.
Especially in remote regions of Africa and rural India, the Catholic Church and missionary communities perform extraordinary service. They protect and nurture children whom the world has ignored or discarded. The Sisters and volunteers are not merely caregivers. They become mothers, fathers, guardians, and hope.
The Blessing of Being Loved
Once, while taking the children outside, I noticed how they stared at families, parents walking hand in hand with their children. In their eyes one could read an unspoken longing: “If only we had a family like that…”
Today, as the world weeps over the pain of a baby monkey like Punch, I remember this truth.
Countless children in our world live in the same loneliness every day.
What they need is not a toy.
They need a heart to hold them.
A hand that assures them: “You are not alone.”
The greatest poverty a human being can experience is not the lack of food or money. It is the absence of love, belonging, and someone to call their own.
Let us remember with gratitude and reverence all those compassionate souls who strive to heal this deepest poverty of humanity.