Mathilde's Farewell mass....Tomoko played as well!!! What a gift!
One of our French friends, Thibault
Dora--a friend of Mathilde's from her German course
Mathilde's sister Marthe came to visit the last 4 days of Mathilde's stay here. It was such a joy to meet some of Mathilde's family and to have them share in our lives here.
But we did some special things as well like go to the Opera (7 euro tickets...not bad!...it was my first time in an Opera!)
Finally a good "girls" community picture
Pierre, a french student in Vienna. He goes weekly with Fr. Jacques and Alina to the home for ex-prisoners.
Raphael--a student from New Zealand/Deutschland and a dear friend of ours!
27. April:
Last night was Mathilde's Farewell mass and get-together. It suddenly all became a little more real. I don't know if it was the finality of the last time we would be running around getting everything ready before the guests arrived and then staring at ourselves in the mirror putting on mascara, hurrying while our friends piled into the chapel (we just never manage to be ready in time...). Or maybe it was putting my arm around her as she shed some tears while Tomoko played Bach's "Ave Maria" to close the mass. Or was it sitting up, talking on the couch until 1am, just Alina, Fr. Jacques, Mathilde and I listening to Chopin, the smoke of her cigarette breezing out the living room window (open to let the summer night air in), talking about Vienna, the world, our friends, our paths, life.
It became more real. Im not just saying goodbye to Mathilde, a 28-year-old, beautiful Parisian, with a deep charity and patient mercy that outlasts most.
I'm saying goodbye to a sister. A sister in every way--for on the basis of our sisterly love we have lived through the beautiful, stretching, deep moments of friendship, as well as the difficult and aggravating moments.
My fondest memories with Mathilde I think revolve around a seemingly unimportant piece of furniture.
Our kitchen breakfast table.
It sits two perfectly, three when we are feeling loving. The fourth has to stand.
Its a piece of loved wood. The home of a basil plant we mostly forget to water. Our dry-erase agenda which hasn't been updated in a month or so. Our bread box--resulting in a mass of bread crumbs strewn over the table regularly (frozen bread doesn't cut easily). And the best part--some long nights of talking with Mathilde--cigarettes, candles and incense (to kill the smell when we're too lazy to go outside to smoke) a glass of beer when there is some left over from the gift a friend of ours brought over, and of course--chocolate. Mathilde's appetite is that of a 5 year old--SWEETS!
My older sister and me--on the same level despite our age difference. Learning from one another. The younger more often giving away to silence and listening to the wisdom of the older.
We talk a lot--when we get the chance to have an hour at home in which no one is ringing the door bell, the phone isn't ringing, we don't have a guest, or we are not invited out somewhere. We joke about how everything that is French is better, or discussing this political issue, or that spiritual experience, or this joy, or that fear. We agree mostly but for fun we play devil's advocate. "Yeah, I see what you mean...but...."
I have learned, discovered so much at that little corner table in the kitchen with my Parisian sister.
One of my favorite nights--facing leaving--we got to talking about contemplation.
There are times in which I stand before a person and simply am without words. I look into their eyes and my heart feels something radiating from their very presence. Like standing in the sun and simply allowing its rays to melt over your skin. There is a beauty--a beauty with depth--in the very being of the person before whom you stand. And no words can describe it, no words can be uttered before it. All I want to do there is stand and watch. If I say something it will break the fragility of the radiance.
In this moment you are beckoned to remain very quiet, true, present, and watchful--four the soul may just get up the courage to speak.
But is that it? It doesn't seem like there are words to describe even this indescribable radiance of the infinitely valuable.
Before this person your own soul is hushed into a rapturous contemplation. The joy is profound. The thirst to wait. To stay. To gaze. is beckoning.
Its a fruitful waiting. Every moment of waiting is simultaneously being fulfilled while still impregnating the next moment with the same watchful awaiting.
I recently met an artist from Berlin. A friend of my brothers and some other friends, he was visiting Vienna for an exhibition of his art. I met him for an hour. And this meeting was exactly this. A beckoning to contemplation. Standing in awe in front of a person, not because of something interesting or beautiful you physically see or know about the person, but because there is something so pure from their very being that radiates and calls you to contemplation--of him as a human person, and of the magnificence of God, his Creator.
It is the same contemplation in front of Nazli, Christian, or Zubahir.
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| Zubahir |
It is awe. being struck by awe. speechless. staring. adoring. beeming.
Just wanting to look in their eyes--the doors of the soul wherein God dwells.
We were discussing this experience. This standing in awe. This contemplative look. So thankful for having discovered it in these last years. For experiencing it.
For that is Heart's Home, i guess, in the simplest and purest of ways.
It is the marveling--and the delicate love provoked from that marvel.
It is nothing ostentatious. Nothing dependent on what the person looks like, the clothes they are wearing, where they live, how they live, the status of their bank account, their connections or job. There is nothing glamorous.
It is silence. staring. absorbing. expectancy.
a pregnant silence.
a fullness and outpouring from utmost poverty.
the poverty of being human -- the richest poverty of being nothing before God but being given the utmost dignity and love by God.
its amazing how the human soul is full of such paradoxes.
This contemplative gase--that is Heart's Home.
But its not something you receive simply. You are invited to learn. And only once you accept to learn can you fully enter into this life. this love.
And in order to learn, you must accept this gaze from the others. From your community. From the people making it possible for you to go on mission. From the first friends you meet. But I have to say, mostly from your own community--in my case, from Alina, Fr. Jacques, Mathilde, Fr. Clemens, Monika.
In order to learn to live in this gaze, you first have to experience being looked at with this gaze.
It was so natural I didn't even think about it--from the beginning, beneath all the nice words about love and community and compassion I was still expecting a gaze full of standards, judgments, expectations and measurements. To go found a new home for Heart's Home--I was fixed on being "successful", on doing it well for Heart's Home--like any other job.
I was preoccupied--"How do they see me? How do they see what I do and how I act? What are they thinking of me and what I do? Do they like this? Do they like that? Will this make them happy or mad at me? Can I really be myself?"
Then I was overwhelmed to enter into this life and be immediately faced with all my weaknesses and faults--I was convinced that "those who are looking at me" could only possibly be seeing all the ways in which I was failing, not fulfilling my call and my desire to live out of love.
But then I began to learn about MERCY. The roots of contemplation.
"Those looking at me", after all my mistakes and failures time and time again, were still looking at me. They had not turned away with made up minds of disappointment or disgust. They were not looking this way or that looking from someone or something better. They were still looking at me. Seeing my beauty, my strengths as well as my weaknesses and loving me with a love strengthened by mercy, drawing them into contemplation.
It is disarming. It is humbling. but I cannot explain why. You feel vulnerable, as if maybe they'll change their minds at any minute, but then reassurance comes when you meet their eyes and you see something so pure and full of love. Something so patient and reassuring. Their eyes saying, "Its ok, you can do this. Don't worry. I won't leave you or reject you or believe that something else is better."
They are standing next to Mary, under my cross and reassuring me...keep going on the road God is leading you on, in the task God has given you. Keep going. Trust.
During a long time I came to learn this look, Mary shared with me her heart under the cross. I came to learn what it meant to be struck by a person's being--called into contemplation--and to stand with them, at their feet, adoring as well as supporting. In this moment I am unable to measure all their successes and failures, and in the end, their successes and failures fade into background music to the beautiful symphony of their soul. In fact, there is not enough time for real formed thoughts to even cross my mind. There is only adoration.
the action of the soul, kneeling down in at the feet of the other who stands before you.
adoring the God who created, dwells in, and lives among.
I am convinced that is why Eucharistic Adoration and the Rosary are two of the most important elements of a life in Heart's Home--in the rosary you ask Mary to become your teacher in contemplation, and in adoration you experience first this contemplative interaction.
There is a story told about St John Vianney (known as the Cure D’Ars) who lived in France in the 19th century. He was a very holy man, prayerful, devout, an inspiration to so many people. He watched an old woman going into the church every day and spending time in prayer. He wanted to know what she prayed about. What did she say to God? And so St John Vianney decided to ask her. He response was very simple.
‘I look at him, he looks at me and we tell each other that we love each other.’
No words. Just a look.
Without the Eucharist and the experience of contemplation before and with God, this experience cannot be born in front of our friends. My mission is a contemplative mission in this way. That is why adoration is so important--for there in this loving gaze with Christ in the Holy Eucharist we experience the contemplation which we shold and do have before our friends.
the gaze of the Eucharist is the gaze He is teaching us to have in front of one another. And in this way, adore Him above all in all that we do. In this way, love each person purely, void of any judgment and overwhelmed with grace.
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