Henrike van Riel Presentation at the Vincentian Family Conference, - PDF document

Henrike van Riel Presentation at the Vincentian Family Conference, Rome January 8-12 2020. Good afternoon, I will continue this presentation - and close it - with a more personal story. slide 1 'Anthony of Padua and choir Before I come to that ... this first slide is just meant to show you the Anthony of Padua Church in Nijmegen, in which I am a parishioner … and where I also enjoy singing in the choir, together with Marieke. Marieke and I met in this parish and through her I became involved in the VdPC. Now for my story. It is not so much a story, but rather fragments. All these fragments are about some beautiful, and sometimes unexpected experiences with religious language. We thought that - in addition to a more theoretical perspective – also concrete experiences from our daily life might be illuminative. slide 2 FIRST FRAGMENT: 'One cross, one candle ’ The 'fragments' are taken from the last two years of my mother's life. When my mother started to grow very old, she was almost ninety, she couldn't live at home anymore. Mentally she was still fine, but physically she became very weak and in need of help. She had to move to a nursing home. That was about 3 years ago. Luckily she could really experience this as a new home, she felt safe there. Something that really reinforced her feeling of home was … that there was a small church service in her nursing home, every Saturday afternoon. [Referring to picture slide: my mother, sitting in the middle, wearing a pink vest … .] The church service took place in a large common room that was normally used for drinking coffee together, celebrating parties, organizing bingo evenings etc. But on those Saturday afternoons, this room completely transformed. In the room there was one big table ... next to that table someone had placed a crucifix and on the table a candle was put. Just before the service the residents shuffled in on the arm of a nurse … or were driven in in their wheelchairs. Then the chaplain entered with an assistant who carried the bible, which he or she laid down on the table. And then … the sound of a bell could be heard and suddenly this room was no longer a recreation room, but a real church .... For me, it was such an astonishing little miracle over and over again, how just two symbols - a cross and a candle - already gave the room a new, sacred meaning. I understood far better than ever before, what it needs to be a

church or to create one: one crucifix, one candle, the bible, and … of course a community and a priest. That’s the heart of it all. And also in a second way I saw clearer what is at the heart of Christian faith. The sermon held by the chaplain was always short and very clear, very simple and straightforward. Everything that was said – or sung, by a little choir - seemed to relate directly to the people with whom I was there. I understood much better than before for whom the joyful message is really meant; for the poor and the disabled, for those who really need comfort and salvation. And that, too, made me feel closer to the core of what faith means. slide 3 SECOND FRAGMENT 'Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est' At some point, about a year and a half after my mother was admitted to the nursing home, she physically weakened very quickly. Her strength diminished rapidly. It became clear that she wouldn't live very long anymore. My mother herself felt this too. She told us that she wanted to receive the anointing of the sick. Referring to slide: anointing of the sick. I chose this image because it was the most beautiful I could find on the internet. The painting can be found in Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church, Boone NC US My mother was a religious woman, not in a strict way, she believed in love rather than in law. During the anointing we wanted to sing a song she loved very much: 'Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est'. But … the thing was … I knew that many people around my mother's bed, family and friends, did not know this song, nor the lyrics of this song - most of them are not religious anymore - So, I wrote the lyrics down on some sheets, which I hung on the wall, above my mother's head. And so we could actually all sing the song together. In the days after the anointing, until my mother died, the sheets remained on the wall. The lyrics of the `ubi caritas ’ above my mother’s head led to some very special moments. Several nurses – most of them young and not connected with any religious tradition - asked me what those Latin words meant. I translated them for them and got amazingly beautiful responses. They seemed to grasp the meaning of the Latin saying immediately. Ok, clear, of course, where there's love, there's God, that makes sense. And I think, they understood it so well, because they themselves practice love in the care they are giving.

slide 4 LAST FRAGMENT 'Whoever lives in love ...' My mother’s funeral took place in and from the church in the village where I grew up. A lot of my friends attended the funeral too. Almost none of them ever go to church and most of them are not religious at all. During the funeral service I sometimes wondered: what will the priest’s words mean to them? Will they find resonance in them? The strange thing was… when I listened - so the say - for a moment with their ears … I felt that almost everything that was said could very well be understood by them. It w asn’t really necessary to be a Christian or catholic to understand and experience some truth in what was said about love, death, the loss of a loved one. Later … at the cemetery … we stand all together by this tree. That is where the coffin with the deceased is placed. And there we sang together `the ubi caritas’ one more time. And it was strange ánd beautiful to see and hear my friends singing along too. All these fragments have something in common, and that is the reason that I wanted to share them with you. For, in all these moments I felt an `old language’ – that of Christianity – became vivid again. Such a thing occurred at - what I would call - `border moments’. In these moments, we as human beings are most vulnerable. And in these moments we are in need for a story that transcends us and connects us with each other . We thank you very much for your attention.