Blood, Jesus and the Soviet Union...

Early this morning I went to a clinic to have some blood drawn. I had to fast overnight so I was in the twilight state of dad-with-an-infant-with-no-coffeeness... a very sad state indeed. The last thing on my agenda was talking about the centrality of Jesus to the Christian Faith to a Polish immigrant who had seen the destruction of Churches in an attempt to erase a the history of Christianity from an entire country but God always seems to have a different agenda for me... (dang, and without coffee)

Her name was Celina and noticing her accent I started small talk asking where she called home. Poland, she told me...how do you say hello (I love to learn a bit of language) so she told me and smiled and that opened the flood gates and we talked all about Poland...

I was taught about the hills, the plains, the mountains, the people. I asked her when she came and she told me she had been in Poland when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. "I'm a priest" I told her, "what was it like for the Churches then...do you have a faith background?"...Yes, she said she was Catholic and spoke with pride of Pope John Paul II. It was good for them all because before that they never saw the faith, it was all hidden in Rome but now it was in their villages.

The Churches were knocked down and burned during the Soviet Occupation she told me, and they were taught in school that Jesus did not exist, a vastly different story from what they were told my their parents at home. They (the Soviets) had no idea about Jesus. She told me of a Soviet doctor who had come to America; she had pulled her aside one day while she was doing some blood work and asked her "what is this Christmas?" ...It is the birthday of Jesus! Celina told her...

Can you imagine, she asked me, not knowing about Jesus? It is sad, she said, especially all those whose religions practice hatred...like the violent Muslims. If you just practice your faith well, we are all OK! You practice what you do and we practice what we do...we all worship Jesus but in different ways...I could understand how her parents taught her this. They had been forced by death and fire to recant their faith...and now they could not stomach to "force" anyone to accept a faith that seemed exclusive. She came from a land and a time where you didn't talk back to your parents, where you accepted what they said...

And I was left to speak the Truth to a woman whom I had just met, an Ancient Truth, the Truth, that went against what she had learned from her parents in the village...
"Celina, that is not Christianity. Only the Christian Faith worships Jesus." He is the only hope to reform the hatred you have seen. It's about being in Christ and worshiping Him. "

How do you convince someone who has been told by their fathers, fathers, father something else? "You can't" I told her, "that is the job of the Holy Spirit", the power that your Pope knew. "Only the Holy Spirit can transform a heart of stone to a heart of flesh."

"This is not what my parents taught me" she said. "I will have to think about it".... so I told her to not believe me but to search the Scriptures and ask a Priest. She looked intense, not offended.

I was struck by the conversation and went off to have breakfast at Starbucks, sitting by the window, reading, eating and praying...and I found myself struck yet again by how God is so ridiculous...
a woman had watched her country destroyed by a Godless power and had come to America for opportunity...and one morning while drawing blood from a sleep-deprived man heard about Jesus in a way she never had...

So I have this haunting thought in my mind from the whole conversation; she said she was very glad that John Paul II was from Poland because they could finally see the faith and it was no longer hidden in Italy...how true for the rest of the world...folks don't see Jesus because He's hidden in the Church...
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