Saint of the Month: Ruben (Reflections on Epiphany 4)

Yesterday I went to visit my friend, Ruben. I try to do this every few months or so. Ruben is a retired laboratory tech, but for more than twenty years he was organist and music director at Faith Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. A native of Puerto Rico, he has a shy, self-effacing Latin charm and is easily the sweetest guy you'd ever want to meet. He also has a deep and abiding love for God. I love to visit with him, practice my lame, high school Spanish, fill him in on the goings on of our congregation, and serve him Holy Communion.

Ruben lives with Parkinson's disease. The ailment has left him debilitated and confined to a wheelchair. It has also affected his speech, producing an uncontrollable stutter which, combined with his accent, makes him a bit hard to understand at times. But Ruben is by nature a quiet man, and I talk my fool head off so I guess it all works out.

Ruben has never married and has no immediate family to care for him. Consequently, he abides in a local nursing home. I confess that I'm slightly creeped-out when I visit him. The home seems to me a kind of warehouse for the elderly and infirm—a Purgatory where abandoned souls are sent to wait out their time before being delivered into the arms of Jesus. There are all the usual noxious odors one associates with such institutions. As I walk down the hall to Ruben's room I am assailed by the smell of urine and feces, and I hear the moans and screams of those who are in pain, confused, and alone. It feels like a scene out of Dante. The hallway is lined with wheelchairs containing flesh and bone shells slowly being emptied of their souls. The heads are bowed, the eyes stare almost sightlessly. I try to make eye contact with a few and smile. Some smile back. Others just stare. I think of that old saying and paraphrase it to myself:
“As I am now, they once were. As they are now, I will one day be.” It's not a comforting thought.

Ruben is usually in his room watching Telemundo or reading his Spanish Bible. He shares the room with two other elderly gentlemen, each one assigned a tiny, curtained space containing a small bed and a dresser. I tap Ruben's shoulder. He smiles up at me and says we'll visit in the common area outside his cramped quarters. It takes him several minutes to wheel himself around the bed and into the hallway, but I respect the man's pride and offer no assistance.

I feel for this gentle soul living in this desolate local. I ask him how he's doing. “Que tal, mi amigo?”

He looks at me with steady eyes.

“I am blessed,” he says.

In the gospel lesson for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany (Matthew 5:1-12), Jesus calls the poor, the grieving, and the hungry “blessed.” This means Jesus has a pretty radical idea of what “blessed” means. It's not about being happy or having what we think we want. Rather, the blessed are the ones whom God loves. They are the ones who live in the promise of God's eternity. In their inmost selves, in their souls, the blessed are the ones who dwell in the knowledge that they are God's own forever. Their circumstances—even poverty, grief, and endless, hungry yearning—are only temporary. It's not about who we are. It's all about who God is.

If one possesses humility, mercy, integrity, a desire for reconciliation with others, and a zeal for righteousness even when such zeal is unwelcome, then one is truly blessed by these very virtues. These things bring comfort and peace to the heart, and they can't be stripped away. My friend Ruben has such virtue, and I love and respect him for it.

When it came time to give Ruben the Sacrament, I asked him what we should pray for. He smiled at me and said, “Happiness.”

Very well, my friend. You've taught me I can be blessed without being happy. But I can never be truly happy without knowing I am blessed.

Thanks for reading, my friends. God bless you.

PS-

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.” Let's make a little peace between Lutherans and Roman Catholics, shall we, children? Ask the Pope to recognize the 500^th anniversary of the reformation by letting our two denominations come together again at the Lord's Table. It can't hurt to ask, can it? Let's show the world a spirit of reconciliation. Sign here.