Conchi

Today I met a woman named Conchi. I was sitting by a cathedral and she came up. She was really old and walked with a limp that came with age. She started talking really fast but I was able to halfway have a conversation with her. She kept saying “Oh what a beautiful girl, you need to be careful. Are you alone? Don’t walk the streets by yourself…” and things like this. She said she was a religious women and from Madrid. She asked where I was from and she kept saying, “what a modern girl. What a beautiful girl”. She kissed my forehead and held my hand. At the end she was saying something about “here, tomorrow…” I wasn’t sure if she was saying I should come back there to talk to her tomorrow or not. I really like her. It seemed to fit, seeing her there with the ancient cathedral in the background. She was sweet, gentle; her words had genuine care to them. I hope I am like her as an old woman. She seems symbolic of an age passed, one where the cathedrals fit well and represented people like Conchi and were still alive with the presence of God. This woman had a glow about her. I can imagine her being someone like Mother Teresa, who though she titled herself, “religious”, did so with the authenticity of knowing her Savior deeply. Standing before me, holding my hand in hers was a woman who understands what humility looks like, what it means to serve out of the simplicity of her love for Jesus, and whose holiness is a reflection of the beauty of God rather than a display of mere morality for the eyes of men. 

I saw such contrast with Conchi, who in my mind, began to look like a sanctuary of God simply in her being and with the rest of the spirituality I've seen. In this place where there are cathedrals that are littered throughout the city, it seems as though the people have lost God. When did the house of God become simply marble, ivory, and precious metals? When did the cathedrals become sanctuaries of the sky, stars, and heaven rather than of the Sovereign King and Creator of the Universe? It is almost as if when the people lost the presence of Jesus in their hearts, they forfeited Him in their cathedrals. I wonder, when did God loose His invitation to these magnificent places originally built for Him? And yet for the soul that the Holy Spirit does indwell, these sanctuaries remain a place of awe, peace, and powerful ground to meet with God. This is my experience; the cathedrals bring me to a quietness of soul, a kindredness with the Spirit of the living God. We, as those chosen in Christ, Beloved of the Almighty, have become the temple of God who bring the presence of God into these beautifully wrought stones handled by men. It is God who makes the place holy; it is God who transforms the cathedral into a sanctuary; it is God who livens the dead walls and dead space and creates them to ring with the glory of himself. It is God forgotten. God I beg You to come in again. Create holiness here. Come renew what is lost. Make this beauty your own.

These cathedrals, alive to the apathy and sin of man yet dead to the living God are similar to us. Some things that we have created to originally be good, to house the presence and glory of God, can become just grey, manmade creations of stone: dead. It is often not the bad things that keep us from God, it is the good ones. It is the morally perfect routines, deeds, the upstanding reputations, and the niceties that come with religion that cause us to become just like the grand cathedrals of Europe. We create morality without drawing near to holiness, thereby flirting with fruits of human nature such as selfishness and pride. I long for the holiness that is a reflection of the beauty of our God; this is the aroma that will draw people to the cross. Now I am wrestling with what that aroma looks like in a strange country where I am alone, surrounded by strangers. Strangers that have captured the heart of the Almighty and need His love desperately.