I haven’t gone through that many Kleenex tissues since hay-fever last fall . . . It was a presentation hosted by our archdiocesan office of education and faith formation at Archbishop Messmer High School two weeks ago. The topic? No More Victims! The speakers? Marilyn Gambrell, the founder of the No More Victims program in Houston, Texas, and four of her beloved “kids.”

You may have heard of Marilyn Gambrell. CNN has done two special segments on her, and a full-length movie, Fighting the Odds, has come out about her work. Her presence, though, and her words, are even more moving than those productions.

Here’s her “cause” in a nutshell. Marilyn was a probation officer. In her work with those incarcerated, she began to discover that the ones who really suffer are the children of the convicts. Most of the inmates in our prisons have children. What happens to them when their parents are sent to jail?

To describe that hellish scenario, Marilyn turned the microphone over to Veronica, Wayne, Jasmine, and Candric, two girls, two boys, each in their teens. Their stories — pardon the cliché — literally broke our hearts.

As you might imagine, their lives were hardly rosy even before their mom or dad went to prison. The dumps in which they lived were often without heat or water, their mom or dad was stoned on drugs most of the time, they were beaten, raped, starved, locked in rooms, and told they were trash.

At early ages, they had to look after younger brothers or sisters. They had nowhere to go, no one in which to confide, no hope in sight. It got only worse when their mom or dad (all four of them came from single-parent homes) would be arrested or jailed. As Jasmine sobbed, “I just wanted somebody to tell me I was loved.”

Marilyn took all this in. And what saddened her most was the cycle of inevitability. See, these kids were told from their earliest moments of consciousness that they were garbage. What was worse, they were treated like it. The potent message was that they had no chance. They, too, they were repeatedly told, would one day be on drugs, arrested, jailed, and then released to slug and rape their own kids. Pardon another cliché — it was a vicious cycle. As Lenard Wells, another powerful speaker, the chair of the Wisconsin Parole Commission, observed, “The sins of the parents are visited on their children,” quoting from Scripture.

Simply put, Marilyn finally said, “Enough! The cycle must be broken! No more victims!” She began cooperating with a local high school that itself was a dumping grounds for delinquent, forgotten young people, where Texas Rangers actually had to walk the halls to keep order. She invited any student who had a parent in jail to begin to come to special classes just for them. (There are now 500 who come).

In those classes, the kids were loved, listened to, hugged, and helped. As Veronica told us, “I had cried myself to sleep every night thinking I was all alone. I had cut myself in the morning ‘cause I wanted to die. And all of a sudden I was part of a group who were all going through the same thing. I finally belonged! I finally had somebody! I was at last accepted!”

Miracles began to happen. The most dramatic was that the cycle of inevitability was halted. Marilyn’s students began to claim — after a lot of love, support, counseling, challenge, learning, and reform — that they were no longer victims! I will not go to jail! I will not snort coke! I will not beat and rape my baby if and when I’m blessed to have one! I will not abuse my kids like I was! I know how it hurts! I am in charge of my life! With a lot of help and love from prophets like Marilyn, I will live and love!

It is working. Kids are beginning to get good grades, graduate, hold jobs. Four just got scholarships to college. Even the attitude of the rest of the students in high school is changing, with gang violence way down, attendance better, graduation levels a bit higher.

All because a brave and savvy woman said “enough.” All because a gritty woman who has seen it all and cries at the drop of a hat is not afraid to say to a 12 year old who has never heard it before, “I love you.”

I had decided three weeks ago that all my Herald columns during these 40 days would be on a Lenten theme. Seems to me this one sure is — dying and rising, caring for the “least of my brethren,” loving in the name of Jesus.

You think we need this in Milwaukee?

If you want to hear more, get in touch with Br. Bob Smith at (414) 769-3450.