Written by Clara Kernodle
“God Abroad ” is a travel column by sophomore Clara Kernodle. Each week, she writes about the different ways she sees God during her HUE study abroad trip. This week, she discusses the final part of her trip, her free travel in Barcelona.
Our HUE semester is over — most of us have flown home or to places like London, Budapest or Paris for a few more days of independent travel. I met my brother in Barcelona, and together we ended the semester with family friends in Granada, a small Moorish town close to the straits of Gibraltar. Eva and Benyamin, with their three daughters, welcomed us to their home, making Spanish omelets, pointing out the best local churreria and teaching us how to play the castanets. It was a sweet and quiet way to end a busy semester, and during this time I was able to examine my experience with Christian Europe, an experience I have been glad to share here.
The story of Europe could be nothing more than another modern tragedy; every year secular pollsters are happy to announce a further decline in the number of Europeans who practice the faith. The southern nations have held onto their heritage of devotion more firmly than the north, and this is especially true of those nations that profess Roman Catholicism. The historical churches are still the physical center of many cities but now stand as mere ornate museums while the rest of life flows around (instead of from) them. Spain as a whole is less Christian than ever, with non-Christians less and less likely to consider the faith. But for the few remaining Christians, the eternal Church is the most important, most constant aspect of life. The faith is the most prominent connection to people outside of the secular culture; Christian tourists from China, Greece or Arkansas can join their Spanish brothers and sisters in Christ in worship. For the Roman Catholics, service is conducted the same way as at home, with the same books and prayers, though in another language. The words of the liturgy and the Gospel itself carry the same meaning in Catalán as they do in English or Icelandic, and the symbol of the cross still hangs above the altar in every nation. Europe, one of the most historically rich continents for Christianity, is not yet lost.
Experiencing the family of the Universal Church has been one of my favorite parts of this semester. As rain turns to snow and multicolored lights glow from bushes and lampposts, I’ve noticed a lot of familial themes, for the global Church is approaching Christmas. An immediate focal point of Eva and Benyamin’s family room was a large Nativity créche, celebrating the Holy Family in the Roman Catholic way. Most American Nativity sets are a few dozen figures to be arranged above the mantel or on top of the piano, but this one was a large wooden box, with painted figurines fixed around the mangers. Benyamin pointed to it and told us proudly that his mother, an accomplished artist, had painted this and seven other créches, one for each of her children. Christmas — and the faith as a whole — is a family affair, he said; the family attends mass together and exchanges gifts on Nochebuena. The family community is how the faith is strengthened and continues. After dinner, we sat in the family room by the fire, chatting and laughing and praying, for across many boundaries, cultural, linguistic or otherwise, the global, eternal Church remains.
