Brian’s Reflection: Monday, Dec 14, 2009

A (wo)man may have never entered a church or a mosque, not
performed any ceremony; but if (s)he realizes God within
him/herself, and is thereby lifted above the vanities of the world,
that (wo)man is a holy (wo)man, a saint, call him/her what you will...

Vivekananda [parentheses mine]


One night in the Brazilian diocese of Recife (Episcopal), around 1992, I went with a priest on his rounds in the favela (slum). The heat was oppressive (for me). Hundreds of thousands of folk lived in cardboard and tin shacks. A few places had “stolen” electricity (the neighbourhood store). Mostly there were candles, and a few kerosene lamps, and wood or charcoal cooking fires. There were no toilets; human refuse ran through gutters in the street. Amazingly, a TV here and there, with hoards of kids and adults glued to them. If there was any meat for the rice, it was, I was told, cat or rat or dog.

We went to a tiny two room house – concrete blocks donated by the Episcopal church. Eight people lived there. The mother passed her infant to a five year old, and brought us one beer – a fabulously generous offering – to share. She took the infant back to breastfeed, her face and the baby’s highlighted and glowing by the flickering yellow light. She and the priest talked quietly in Portuguese.

Suddenly I “saw” where, mythically and in reality, I was. In Bethlehem, in the stable. There was Mary suckling God Incarnate. I was she, a human being, like every human being bearing within me the Divine Life. Made to give birth to God in the human community. This woman had never been in a church or mosque – but I could see she “realized God within” in a completely unselfconscious way. She was full of love. I was among saints.

There was no vanity of the World. Impossible in that favela. But that moment became for me an icon of Life, reminding me to look for the Holy everywhere.

Brian+