Behold, The New Has Come

Ten years ago someone was showing me pictures from their family trip to Eastern Europe. I was intrigued by the photo of the interior of St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle. I will not be able to show it online but will include the photo on the Word Document copy of this piece. The photograph shows a glorious stained glass window and a wall perpendicular to the window. The light streaming through the window projects a softer image of all the colors and shapes beautifully on the wall.

I asked permission from the couple to write up a short piece of fiction based on the image, and they kindly granted it. What follows is what emerged, which I feel goes well with the Epistle we will hear tomorrow in Church: 2 Corinthians 5:6-10, 14-17. It is strong teaching from St. Paul on how our new life in Christ is complete, eternal, and begins for us now. When we allow Christ to reign within us, the grace of the Holy Spirit cooperating with our own free will, then we will encounter new creation within ourselves. Here is the piece from a decade ago:

THROUGH THE WALL

She walked past the cathedral every day, so she wondered why today, for the first time, she was stepping through its enormous doors. She was surprised to find herself plodding up the left side-aisle of the empty cavernous nave, heading slowly past pew after pew. Then, without thought, she stopped near the front, and side-stepping scooted in and crumpled like a heap onto the hard seat. Immersed as she was in sadness, she knew that categories of faith, the symbols of belief, could not lift her out of her funk.

Dark, thick despair is a context beyond the reach of dogma; religious categories do not necessarily quicken a soul so steeped in lethargy. Sitting for a time, she then knelt, well...slumped limply on the kneeler with her arms folded on the pew-back in front of her. The beauty of the place was lost on her. The carved, wooden adornments and furniture would not catch her eye, neither the paintings, nor the candles, nor even the colossal design of the clerestory window.

Somehow she was grateful that the low lying clouds muted the sunlight this morning, mitigating the brightness of the windows. Such stimulation would only have thickened her malaise. She preferred, now, simply to sit in quiet, alone. She was grateful too that in front of her was a large white stone wall, on which to focus.

Not able to bear the ornamentation, the appointments on the altar, the tapestries and such, she stared at the blankness of the wall. She loved its dullness which matched so well the cold, hard emptiness she felt inside. Then she rested her head on the back of her hands stacked flatly on the pew-back in front of her. She rocked her head, side to side, the full dead weight of it on her hands. Her grave sadness was a world of its own.

Some time passed; she could not have known how much when she raised her head and opened her eyes to welcome again the blank white wall. To her amazement, she found in its place a wall of color, For now, the stone reflected colors projected through the window. Alas, the clouds had parted, and the rays of the mid-morning sun streamed through the stained glass. Where she might have been shut down from this display when she first had entered, she was not now. The wonder of light and the beauty of the art in glass, registered. To her surprise, she felt seeds of delight germinating in the soil of her fallow heart.

Not an hour ago, she felt nothing, but now something was happening within. And it was growing. It was intensifying, like new circulation in tissue deprived. As it grew and coursed through her, she felt somehow the Universe itself had taken notice of her. The effect of this was indescribable. In wordless amazement, she soaked in the feeling. Something like liquid energy was rushing through her body. She would not have been moved by the window itself when first she took her seat. It was as if the cathedral knew this. In a team effort with sun and clouds, the wall and window surprised her stealthily, and by subtle means warmed her heart out of its chilled condition.

When words did flow into her mind, she did not know the origin, but the phrases were clear from somewhere in the past. She heard phrases over and over as her spirit began to dance to their rhythm: "You are a new creation—the old has passed away—behold, the new has come—you are a new creation—the old has passed away—behold, the new has come…”.