A CRUZADA DAS CRIANÇAS
Caríssimo/a:
Só de pensar neste tema, me junto a Augusto Gil a dizer-chorar-rezar:
…
Mas as crianças, Senhor,
Porque lhes dais tanta dor,
Porque padecem assim?
E os adjectivos de pessoa bem instalada na vida não se fazem esperar: incrível, horroroso; inacreditável, horrendo; inimaginável, horripilante…
De facto, nunca ouvira qualquer referência e fiquei assim a olhar para as letras como se de um mar de sangue se tratasse, o qual submergia e fazia esquecer a “matança dos Inocentes” de Herodes.
Abri o livro “365 Things to Know”, de Clifford Parker, da 12.a impressão, de 1981, na página 18 e li:
“Between 1100 and 1300 the Christians rulers of Europe organised several expeditions, or crusades, to Palestine with the object of recovering the Holy Places from the Saracens. In 1212 happened the strangest and most tragic crusade of them all: the Children’s Crusade. A twelve-year-old shepherd boy named Stephen went to the King of France with a letter which he said came from Christ, and asked him to start a crusade. The King would not, so Stephen announced that he would organise a crusade of children, and that the sea would miraculously dry up to allow them to walk to the Holy Land.
Stephen set off and soon collected thirty thousand children. Many of them died from hunger and thirst on the march through France to the sea – a hot summer that year had brought drought to the land. When the survivors reached Marseilles, the port on the Mediterranean, they found that the sea would not dry up to let them cross. Two rascally merchants took them aboard seven ships, promising to take them to Palestine, but their real intention was to sell them into slavery. Two of the ships were wrecked in a storm. The rest reached Algeria, where the children were duly sold. Of the thirty thousand children who set off, only one ever got back to France, and that was after eighteen years of slavery.
At the same time as the French Children’s Crusade got under way, another one was started in Germany by a boy called Nicolas. Twenty thousand children set off on this: only one in ten finally returned home.”
Certamente que muitos já conheceriam este facto, mas para quem como eu o ouve pela primeira vez, desenha um mundo de interrogações; à partida, a dúvida: será verdade?
Enciclopédia Britânica na mão e no 6º volume, na página 786 lá está: “…the Children’s crusade of 1212…A shepherd boy named Stephen had appeared in France… In Germany a child from Cologne, named Nicolas …”
Neste Domingo, apetece-me chamar para a minha beira o Espírito Santo para ter uma conversa muito séria com Ele ou, pelo menos, sussurrar:
- Divino ESPIRITO SANTO,
AMOR do PAI e do FILHO,
Soprai, soprai, soprai,
Varrei, varrei, varrei,
Arrancai o nosso coração de pedra
E trocai-o por um coração de carne,
Instaurai o vosso REINO,
REINO de PAZ, de AMOR,
De JUSTICA, PERDÃO e MISERICÓRDIA…
E “as crianças, SENHOR,
Porque lhes dais tanta dor,
Porque padecem assim?”
Manuel
