Sunday Homily, May 7, 2017, 4th Easter
Say Rosemary & Cathy, "Happy Kentucky Derby Weekend and welcome in."
Readings:
Acts of the Apostles 2, 14, 36-41 Let the whole house of Israel know.
Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd. (Beautiful, consoling)
1 Peter 2, 20-25, By his wounds have you been healed.
John 10, 1-10, Whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd.
Welcome back to Dallas, Ann, and to our community. You are one of our best all time friends.
The Three Best
Whenever I go on a trip like the one Rosemary & I just did with Viking on the Elbe River in Eastern Germany, I get questions. Like, ‘What was the best thing?’ I would like to talk briefly about 3 best things that struck me, a Berlin chapel, a church door, and a concentration camp.
This bell tower is all that is left of the old gothic Kaiser Wilhelm church in central Berlin. It is preserved as a remembrance.
In the heart of Berlin there used to be a large gothic church called Kaiser Wilhelm Church. It was bombed badly in the war and all that is left is a large, beat up bell tower. Bullet wounds and bomb damage from bottom to what is left of the top. The bell tower has been preserved as is to remind.
Interior of the Kaiser Wilhelm chapel . The blue ambiance comes from bricks with glass circles tinted blue, very moving.
Next to the tower a chapel has been built, very plain, a grey box on the outside. After looking at prewar pictures of the old church, just for the heck of it, I decide to go inside the rather plain chapel. I am stunned by the simple beauty. The curved front wall is made of cement blocks with round blue bottle like glass. A gold, ascending, larger than life-sized Christ hangs right in the middle. Simple wooden pews. The blue and gold ambience was stunning.
The half destroyed bell tower and the stunningly moving chapel symbolize for me the story of Berlin.
View of interior from right aisle. The bell tower in union with this simple chapel symbolize the old and the new Berlin.
Second best experience. Wittenberg and the church where Martin Luther posted 95 theses, exactly 5 centuries ago on October 31.
All my training about this event gave me a misconception. Namely, that Luther was out to start a church revolution. Nope.
Wittenburg, Church door where Martin Luther posted his 95 theses 500 year ago this year. It was a university bulletin board.
The story goes like this. Luther was a professor at the Wittenberg University. The church door was a bulletin board. Professors would post theses which the students were expected to debate the pros and cons of. Everything was hand written in Latin. Luther even titled his material as Disputation on the Power & Efficiency of Indulgences. Disputation is the key word and implied debate of the pros and cons. It was only later that year or the next that Rome got wind of them and a year later excommunicated Luther and the ideas went viral.
Wittenburg town center.
3 samples of theses:
#21. Those indulgence preachers are in error who say that a man is absolved from every penalty and saved by papal indulgences.
27. They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.
32. Those who believe they can be certain of their salvation because they have indulgence letters will be eternally damned, together with their teachers.
St. Mary's Church, Wittenberg. This is not the Luther church which was more of a college chapel.
I spent three years, ’62-’65, studying philosophy at Spring Hill College in Mobile. There were a hundred plus Jesuits engaged in this process. We debated theses and we debated in Latin. I took all my philosophy exams in Latin, written and mostly oral. We had the church position and we had the adversaries. We were expected to be able to verbally ace those adversaries. Luther was probably one of our adversaries.
A small number of the survivors of Ravensbruck.
This was so déjà vu for me. I could feel exactly what was going on, no revolt, just debate. Somebody copied those theses, got them to Rome, and some priest, bishop, or pope over reacted, excommunicated Luther, and a revolt took place among the people. Could this be taking place today?
Revensbruck compound & barracks. 100,000 plus women were concentrated here.
Thirdly, Ravensbruck concentration camp for women. For years I have read about the camps, in particular Ravensbruck. This camp was set up for women and it was this camp where medical experiments were performed on the women.
Ravensbrook compound. The camp is 60 miles north of Berlin.
We drove straight north out of Berlin about two hours on a beautiful day. When I walked onto the compound I felt I was walking on hallowed, sacred ground. The barracks have all been removed, but the official buildings are still there, the infirmary, the clothes sewing hall, and the men & women officers’ houses. I stood on the morning assembly ground and could see it all.
As human beings we are capable of such horror and such beauty.
Ravensbruck today. The barracks have been removed, but the outlines are still present. On the left are the work building and the infamous infirmary. The picture is taken from the assembly area.