Your Jesus! My Buddha!
─Religion Dialogue in Depth
Written by: Sense Chen
Translated by: Justin Huang
Chap 1
Time: Winter 2005
Place: Tien Education Center,Taipei,Taiwan
“Where am I?”
Fr. Albbert (Albert Poulet–Mathis, S. J.) opened his eyes with efforts. He felt as if he was in the hell of ghosts, with the wind blowing piercing cold. He was eager to get away from here. But he could not move. He wanted to shout to the top of his voice. But something got stuck in his throat. He was in the dark. He felt cold from top to toe. He felt he was dying! Fr.Albert thought in his inner mind: “Am I dying?” It was obvious that this was not the paradise in his mind!
Fr. Albert was too much shocked, keeping eyes closed tightly and went on praying. But he was in confusion. He just could not calm himself down. In puzzle, he kept asking himself: “Am I not devout enough? Or have I done something wrong? How come I can not go into the Heaven?”
Time seemed to come to a pause for as long as a century. As his breath was getting more smoothly, his emotion got more peaceful little by little. He was sure that he was still alive! He slowly opened his eyes. He got to distinguish that the shadows in the dark were just the reflections of the leaves on the ceiling. The wind was still blowing noisily. Fr. Albert then found that he was lying on the cold ground!
On the winter night of December, it was of course piercing cold to lie on the icy ground!
Fr. Albert struggled to stand up, but in vain. He was too powerless to hold himself up! His brain lost control of the nerves of his limbs. He felt that he could turn no parts of his body except the neck! He felt the back of his head aching. His left cheek was wet and icy. It tasted like blood! He sought for what it was along his eyesight until he saw the Cross and Jesus on the wall. He then made sure that he was in his own room. To his surprise, the familiar space looked strange at different angles. He guessed that he must have fallen down from his own bed!
“He wonders what time it is. It must be midnight!” Fr. Albert hoped that he could come to his consciousness before morning prayers lest he should be late. Fr. Albert kept regular hours! (He used to be on time.) In his childhood, he father warmed him against wasting others’ time! This was the basic principle of being human!
He found there was still the rough blanket on his body! The blanket brought comfort to him! The blanket was given by a good friend as a souvenir twenty years ago when he was still in Lo Shen Sanatorium. He was a leprosy patient. In those years, Fr. Albert served in Lo Shen Sanatorium. He accompanied him until the end of his life.
“It will be soon before they can meet!” Fr. Albert thought. He was as old as seventy or more than seventy and disease kept torturing him. Maybe death might relieve him of old age and pain! While thinking of these, Fr. Albert felt easier and better. He tried his best to keep himself awake. The appearances of his family members appeared vividly before his eyes one by one, father, mother, brothers, sisters, nieces, friends, and even his grandparents, all of whom were looking at him with smiles on their faces. In fact, Fr. Albert was in his sixties. At that time he was only twelve years old. His family called him “Albert”!
In that particular year, German troops invaded France, just like “tonight” when he slept on the icy cold ground! On the icy ground there were his grandparents and parents!
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