BELGIUM Avelgem
August 11
Mario drove us – his wife Merlita, Cher, and myself – from Brussels Airport to their farm, a journey of an hour along the expressway in his Chevrolet Captiva SUV. As a fellow driver and car enthusiast, I was captivated by the parade of high-speed vehicles on the highway: BMWs, Mercedes-Benzes, Audis, Peugeots, Volvos, and Land Rovers – a dazzling array of ultrafast toys in this part of the world. That evening, my wife and I savored our first outdoor Belgian dinner under an unusually bright sky at 10 p.m.
Mario and Merlita’s 405-year-old house, built in 1619, sits on a modest 4.7-hectare farm inherited from Merlita’s first Belgian husband, Daniel, who received it from his great-great-grandparents. Recovered during the house renovations were two artifacts Mario showed to us: a wooden post carved with the year 1619 and an old, faded photograph of a woman named Margaret, believed to be an early owner of the house and farm, who lived in 1726.
Reflecting on their history, Merlita met and married Daniel in the Philippines before moving to Belgium. After Daniel’s passing, Mario entered her life, sparking their love story. The day after our arrival, a Sunday, we attended an online Eucharistic Mass on YouTube, presided over by Fr. Jerry Orbos – a testament to the convenience of online worship, accessible anytime and anywhere.
The next day, Mario shared an extraordinary tale about a local Catholic Church slated for demolition. “My wealthy friend Phillip bought the church because his devout Catholic mother wanted to preserve it,” Mario explained. Now privately owned, the church has become an adoration sanctuary without a Mass or priest, open to visitors from nine in the morning until six in the evening, maintained weekly by hired caretakers.
This peculiar fate of the church reflects a broader trend in Europe, where many sacred buildings are repurposed into secular venues. Headlines like Fortune’s “A mostly godless Europe is turning its ancient churches into dance clubs and cultural hot spots: ‘There is no return to the past possible’” and The Voice of America’s report on Belgian churches being converted into business underscore this phenomenon.
“Across Europe, churches and other Christian religious buildings stand increasingly empty. These empty churches are being repurposed. That means they are being changed into other things such as hotels, sport climbing businesses, and even dance places.
“Supporters say the changes remove the need for costly repairs and care of the buildings. But critics say such changes raise ethical concerns.
“Empty churches can be seen over much of Europe – from Germany to Italy and many nations in between. But the empty churches really stand out in Flanders, in the northern part of Belgium. The area has some of the greatest cathedrals in Europe.”
I had read these unsettling headlines before our flight to Belgium, but I never imagined that Mario and Merlita’s farmhouse would be the place where we would confront such a distressing issue in Christendom. Mario surprised us by sending money for our round-trip tickets to Belgium and further astonished us by revealing the strange circumstances of a local Catholic Church. To date, he has guided us to visit five Catholic churches – all sadly empty. Merlita’s comment about Mario added to the mystery: “He doesn’t have religion.”
August 12
Suddenly, over the dining table, Mario shared a story that seemed to be the epiphanic key to our puzzling chain of events. He recounted a near-death experience from many years ago, when a car accident left him hospitalized for six months. He showed us the long, disfiguring scars from the surgeries on his abdomen.
While in coma, Mario said he had a spiritual encounter, walking in an otherworldly place bathed in bright lights. In an instant, he saw his father, who had died in a car accident along with Mario’s mother and sister when he was just a child. His father told him, “Go back. It’s not your time yet.” At that moment, hospital records indicated that Mario gasped for air and woke up from his coma.
When he recovered and shared his near-death experience with friends in Belgium, Mario said their typical reaction was, “The high-tech did it.”
As Filipino Catholics, we transcend such limited human rationale. I assured Mario that he was not alone, as many similar experiences have been chronicled and published. Moreover, his spiritual encounter could offer insights into life after death. I then shared Jesus Christ’s promise:
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”John 14:1-4
Frankly, as guests in Belgian home, I have qualms about whether I am connecting the dots appropriately.
By the grace of God, I know He is saying something in my daily Bible reading today:
[Our] Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:14
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