THIS IS MY CATHEDRAL
I listened intently to the sermon Sunday, because
it began with the story of the birth of twins, so of course, it caught my
attention. However, the thread about the twins was not actually what
kept me enthralled. It was one statement that made me stop to catch
my breath. It was the story of Cardinal
Thuan Van Nguyen and how he had been imprisoned for 13 years in Viet
Nam. For most of the years, he had been in isolation and of course,
deeply depressed.
This prisoner in horrific conditions
managed to get some wine and some crumbs of bread.
They
sent me a small bottle of wine for Mass with a label that read, ‘medicine for
stomachaches.’ They also sent some hosts, which they hid in a flashlight for
protection against the humidity. The police asked me, ‘You have stomachaches?
Yes. Here’s some medicine for you.’
I will never be able to express my
great joy! Every day, with three drops of wine and a drop of water in the palm
of my hand, I would celebrate Mass. This was my altar, and this was my
cathedral!
He describes many things about his
life in prison and of how he wrote notes on small, dirty pieces of
paper. He shared these notes with other prisoners, with cruel guards
and others. They contain words of such profound spirituality and
faith that they have been combined into a book.
In our country there is a saying: ‘A day in
prison is worth a thousand autumns of freedom.’ I myself experienced this.
While in prison, everyone waits for freedom, every day, every minute. We must
live each day, each minute of our life as though it is the last.”
But, what caught my breath the most in last
Sunday’s sermon, what made me stop short and hear almost nothing else, was “This
is my cathedral.” So, for me it is this. Everyday in
every difficult, wonderful, heartbreaking, thrilling, mundane, boring,
challenging, lovely, hideous, frustrating, satisfying, angry, tolerant, kind,
cruel, empathetic, confusing, dull, exciting, mystifying, logical, rewarding,
disappointing, frightening, fearless, doubtful, faithful moment, THIS is my
cathedral! So, when I have been wrenched away from love by the death
of my precious child or when I have danced with my oldest son at his wedding;
when I have witnessed the agony of disease or the satanic grip of addiction or
thrilled to the accolades of my children graduating; when I have looked into
the eyes of my beloved in my wedding whites or buried my father’s wasted away
body; when I have held the thousands of newborn babies in my grateful arms or
held their tearful and yearning mothers, all of this IS MY
CATHEDRAL! Every day in every moment in every way, no matter how
small or how grandiose, I am where I am meant to be!
