Revd Shemil Mathew, Vice Dean || 16 May 2024
I cannot believe we have come to yet another season of change, and goodbyes. Some of us are moving home, and beginning new ministry roles. This weekend, some of us will meet for the final time as ordinands.
Last month I had the privilege of representing the Church of England as part of an interfaith delegation on the ‘March of the Living’ in Poland, which culminated in a walking pilgrimage from Auschwitz 1 to Birkenau camps on the Jewish Remembrance Day for victims of the Holocaust – ‘Yom HaShoah’. We visited the sites where millions of Jews, political dissidents, the disabled, religious leaders, LGBTQI individuals, Romani, and those deemed as “other” were imprisoned, tortured and murdered.
Walking through rooms full of shoes, luggage and human hair (collected to make fabric) from the murdered victims was indeed challenging to my faith. I found myself staring at everyone’s dusty shoes at evening prayer thinking that this dust is indeed holy as it is made of blood, sweat, tears and even the ashes of my siblings who were also created in the image of God. My prayers that evening was not of celebrating a jubilant Eastertide, but of repentance. Amidst the remnants of lives lost, we encountered stories of resilience, unwavering faith, and ultimate sacrifice. Among them, the poignant story of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who willingly exchanged his own life for that of a fellow prisoner, stands as a beacon of selflessness. After surviving two weeks with no food or water in a small, lightless, narrow cell he was killed by lethal injection of carbolic acid.
At the last residential we prayed for those of our siblings around the world persecuted for their faith. On the March of the Living, I had the privilege to be with some of the still living survivors of Holocaust. They shared their stories of how they reconciled their faith with what happened in this particular dark time in the history. Barbara who is now in her 80s, travelled with us on the bus, shared her story of when she was just 5 years old, hiding in a Warsaw tenement building. She was concealed behind a wardrobe for over six months from daybreak to sunset. We asked her how she spent her time, and she said she licked her fingers and drew pictures on the back of the wardrobe again and again.
The story of Maximilian and the testimony of Barbara serve as poignant reminders of God’s presence even in the darkest and most brutal circumstances. Yet, they also highlight humanity’s absence. In our haste to mete out punishment and eradicate those we deem as “other,” we’ve forgotten our shared humanity. It’s a sobering realization that amidst our actions, we’ve lost sight of the fact that both the victim and the perpetrator are human beings.
Our Emmanuel community is on a journey to embody the essence of Christ. As we strive to mirror the divine-human nature of Christ, we must resist the temptation to reduce ourselves and others to mere statistics or labels within narrow theological or ecclesiastical circles. Our identity transcends such limitations; we are each intricately and beautifully crafted in the image of God, with all our unique quirks and qualities.
As many of us venture beyond the familiar bounds of our community, I offer a prayer that we may continue to mature into a unified body, with Christ as our head. May we embrace our individuality and diversity, recognizing each person as a sacred expression of God’s love. Let us nurture a community where every soul is valued and celebrated for the richness they bring to our collective journey of faith.
