Recently I had the very great joy to re-visit (after a
gap of nine years since my previous visit) what is perhaps the most beautiful
city in the world – Prague. There are some who would of course find cities that
they prefer, but from a personal point of view I have yet to find anywhere that
would match it.
A few days in Prague is a wealth of opportunity to see
the most amazing buildings, the most incredible churches, and a kind of
‘unspoiled’ European ‘ruggedness’ which I think is very charming. As I toured
round on the rustic trams, listening to the almost unpronounceable language
around me, I was aware that there was so much to take in.
What struck me most of all was how very fortunate I was
to be seeing such a beautiful place, and how wonderful it was to simply take my
passport and my suit case through customs, and see it all. We take this for
granted now, when it is only a few years back that a visit to the Eastern-block
was tremendously difficult, and the security there was unbelievable – even
today, people still remember people being followed around by political policemen
watching your every move.
People in Eastern-block countries of course were not
allowed to leave their countries either – the beautiful city of Prague was to
all intents and purpose ‘locked away’ and it is only in recent years that we
have been able to visit such places and to be enthralled by its splendour – and
there are many other wonderful cities in that part of Europe for which the case
was the same.
What is very ironic is that in the airport I picked up a book about a Jewish
lady who was a concert pianist from Prague – musician biographies usually
interest me, and I started reading it on the plane. The story followed her from
Prague to the concentration camp at Terezin which is situated about an hour away
from Prague itself. During my stay I made the journey there to see the museum at
Terezin. It was, as all such places are, a place which will stay with me for a
very long time.
Just as when I have visited Auschwitz in the past and
also the Anne Frank House, you can never really put into words what it means to
be in those places and the impossibility of trying to understand what horror
went on in these places.
In Terezin, the lady in question, Alice Herz-Sommer used
to give piano recitals, as well as other concerts by several famous musicians
had been encarcerated there at the same time. During that time, and obviously
weak from the existence she had there, she gave recitals of all 24 Chopin
Studies. This is a tremendous feat for any pianist; only once have I ever
attended a concert where 12 have been played live, but all 24 is not only an
incredible feat, but is also quite rare. The Chopin Studies incorporate every
imaginable pianistic difficulty, and very few people – even master pianists –
can really play them with enough confidence to programme them all in a recital.
In a kind of mind over matter, this lady decided that
such a feat was actually what she needed to concentrate her mind and her
energies away from the horror of what she was having to survive. Picking up this
book and visiting the actual place was an experience which will stay with me for
a very long time, I am sure.
Courage takes many and varied forms, and in the example
I have used here we see courage in a very extreme case – courage which was
necessary not only for someone’s own sanity, but also for their own survival.
As a priest I see examples of courage on a regular basis
– often very easily missed, but they are there. Courage, in fact, has many
facets and even in the smallest examples it is there. That is one of the things
which makes a priest’s life very special…the people a priest comes across in the
course of a working week, and the way they embrace life and its difficulties,
and somehow always come out on top.
For all of us, life throws challenges at us from time to
time, but some people get more challenges than others – and the great courage
which they show is always very humbling to those of us around them.
That strength of course, does come from God who loves us for the people we are,
and in his love, we have that strength to champion the challenges which life
very often throws at us!