This is the story of one Malay's trip to Mecca, and the strange incidents that occurred there.
Mecca! The man we will call Mohammed shivered with excitement. To think he was really here, at the heart of Islam in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the great Prophet, whose name he bore--the dream of a lifetime!
Although Mohammed served as an imam (pastor) at his local mosque on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, he had never before made a pilgrimage to Mecca, as all devout Muslims must do at least once. This first hajj in May 1992, fulfilled Mohammed’s commitment to the fifth and last pillar of Islam. He went full of expectation, that this trip would represent the spiritual climax of his life.
On his first day in Mecca, Mohammed signed up for a bus tour of some outlying holy sites. The next morning he arrived early for one of the many regularly scheduled departures, and he sat right behind the bus driver, to get a good view out the front window. He was glad the coach did not fill up, and the seats nearby remained empty.
The bus shifted into gear, and headed down the road toward the city of Medina and the shrines they would visit. In Medina the Prophet Muhammad had established his theocratic state, after fleeing a murder plot in Mecca in a.d. 622. With Medina more than two hundred miles north of Mecca, Mohammed had plenty of time to strike up a conversation with the bus driver.
Above the drone of the engine they exchanged chit-chat, using English as a common language.
"Yes, this is my first hajj," Mohammed told the dark-haired driver, whose face framed deep, penetrating eyes. "I’m from Sumatra, a Malay--one of the largest Muslim people groups in Southeast Asia."
The driver swiveled his head sideways enough to see Mohammed. "You know, you really shouldn’t have spent all your money coming here."
Mohammed figured he had misunderstood. He leaned forward to catch the driver’s words. "Excuse me?"
"Coming here on pilgrimage is really a waste of money," the driver repeated unmistakably. "All the rituals seeking to get into Allah’s good graces--when you stop to think about it, Islam is full of hypocrisies."
Stunned, Mohammed could only listen as the man went on to point out issues he had never considered. For over an hour they conversed, as the bus rumbled on through the desert.
"The truth is," said the driver, turning to look straight at his passenger, "Allah wants to know you personally, as a friend, not just at a distance through rituals. Islam can’t give you that kind of relationship."
With their destination approaching, the driver slowed and downshifted, to park at the site. Everyone disembarked, but Mohammed’s head spun with new, unthinkable thoughts. In a daze he followed the tour group, yet now everything seemed confused.
What did the driver mean? Where did he get such a perspective? How could I possibly run into a person like that in the Holy Land!
After the tour Mohammed hurried back to meet the returning bus, eager to get a seat by the driver and resume their conversation. But when he boarded, he looked up to see the face of someone new. His spirits sank.
"What happened to the earlier driver?" he asked the man behind the wheel.
He got little more than a shrug in response.
Mohammed found a seat and stared out the window. During the trip back to Mecca, his heart burned with the words of the man on the morning bus. He felt he could recall the whole conversation from beginning to end.
Mohammed’s hajj lasted more than a week, but the excitement and anticipation he had brought with him fizzled like air from a leaky tire. Everything he saw and did etched fresh questions and doubts into his mind. As he continued his pilgrimage, he scanned all the buses lined up at each tour site, but never saw his driver again.
Back at home Mohammed’s family wondered why he had not returned bubbling with joy from his spiritual zenith. In the solitude of his thoughts, he pored over the events of his hajj. He could not forget the driver’s words or his face. Yet Mohammed’s spirit grappled with perplexities. If Islam is not the true faith, what is?
A few days later Mohammed dropped by the home of a neighbor we will call A-Ching, a Chinese Christian, to borrow something. A-Ching welcomed him inside with customary Indonesian hospitality. As they chatted, Mohammed’s eyes lit on something hanging from A-Ching’s wall. There within a picture frame, he saw the face of his bus driver from Mecca!
Mohammed gasped, pointing to the picture. "A-Ching! Do you know this man?"
"Yes, I do," came the reply. "That is Jesus. You know Him as Isa."
Mohammed sat still as a stone. Isa! The second-highest prophet in Islam--the Christians’ Messiah! Could it be--?
When he found his voice, he spoke up quietly. "I have a story to tell you, A-Ching."
His neighbor, shocked at the tale, listened in silence. When Mohammed finished, he began to choke up, suddenly overcome with conviction of his sin. A-Ching explained the truths Jesus had declared, about His own identity and purpose.
"Mohammed, you can receive salvation as the free gift of God, through Jesus Christ," A-Ching told him. "You can have a personal relationship with God."
Mohammed prayed, and committed his life to Christ. When he returned home, he gathered his family and spilled out the whole account. Awed at his story and his transformation, they, too, confessed Jesus as Lord and Messiah.
A-Ching introduced Mohammed privately to the pastor of his local fellowship. Then, for their own protection, a network of believers spirited the new convert and his family to a safe house in another city, where they could receive Christian teaching, without risking retribution from angry Islamists.
Mohammed’s trip to Mecca indeed proved to be the turning point of his spiritual life. But he never expected supernatural revelation to come through his bus driver.
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Sorrows and Privation
Abba Markos once asked the holy Arsenios why it is, that the most pious and virtuous people pass through the world with numerous sorrows and in privation.
"Sorrows, for those who accept them with forbearance," the holy one answered, "Are the salt that prevents putrefaction by sins; moreover, sorrows allow the soul to approach heaven cleansed."
Revelations of Saint Gertrude
Chapter 22.
How Saint Gertrude was admitted to the vision of God
– Of the kiss of peace, and other similar favours.
I should be unjust, in recalling the gratuitous gifts which I have received from Thy charitable clemency, if I ungratefully passed over what was granted to my unworthiness, by Thy most loving clemency, during a certain Lent. For on the second Sunday, as they sang at Mass before the procession, the response which commences Vidi Dominum facie ad faciem,* a marvellous and inestimable coruscation illuminated my soul with the light of Divine revelation, and it appeared to me that my face was pressed to another face, as St. Bernard says: "Not a form, but forming; not attracting the bodily eye, but rejoicing the heart; giving freely gifts of love, not merely in appearance but in reality."
In this most enchanting vision, Thine eyes, bright as the solar rays, appeared opposite to mine, and Thou alone knowest how Thou, my dearest Lord, affected not only my soul, but even my body and all my strength. Grant, therefore, that as long as I live I may prove myself Thy humble and devoted servant.
But even as the rose is more beautiful and gives forth a sweeter fragrance in the spring, when it flourishes, than in the winter, when it is dried up, and, like the remembrance of joy that is past, rekindles in us some pleasure to think of it, so I desire, by some comparison, to declare what I felt in this most joyful vision, to extol Thy love, so that if those who read this receive similar or even greater favours, they may thereby be excited to acts of thanksgiving; and I myself, by recalling them frequently, will inflame the negligence of my gratitude beneath the rays of this burning-glass. When Thou didst display Thy most adorable Face,-- the source of all blessedness, as I have said, embracing me, unworthy,-- a light of inestimable sweetness passed though Thy Deified eyes into mine, passing through my inmost being, operating in all my members with admirable power and sweetness: first, it appeared as if the marrow were taken from my bones; then, my flesh and bones appeared annihilated; so much so, that it seemed as if my substance no longer had any consciousness save of that Divine splendour, which shone in so inexplicable and delightful a manner, that it was the source of the most inestimable pleasure and joy to my soul.
Oh, what shall I say further of this most sweet vision, if I may so term it? For all the eloquence of the world, if employed daily to persuade me, could never convince me that I should behold Thee more clearly even in glory, O my God, the only salvation of my soul, if Thou hadst not taught me by experience. I will dare to say that if anything, human or Divine, can exceed the blessedness of Thy embrace in this vision, as I consider, I may truly say that, unless thy Divine virtue possessed that person, the soul would never remain in the body, after a momentary taste of this blessedness.
I render thanks to Thee, through the union of mutual love which reigns in the adorable Trinity, for what I have so often experienced, and that Thou hast deigned to favour me with Thy caresses; so that while I sat meditating, or reading the Canonical Hours, or saying the Office of the Dead, Thou hast often, during a single Psalm, embraced my soul many times with a kiss, which far surpasses the most fragrant perfumes or the sweetest honey; and I have often observed Thou didst look on me favourably, in the condescending caresses Thou didst give to my soul. But though all these things were filled with an extreme sweetness, I declare, nevertheless, that nothing touched me so much as this majestic look of which I have spoken. For this, and for all the other favours, whose value Thou alone knowest, mayest Thou rejoice for ever in that ineffable sweetness surpassing all comprehension, which the Divine Persons communicate mutually to each other in the bosom of the Divinity!
May a like thanksgiving—or, if possible one even greater—be rendered to Thee, for an extraordinary favour Thou hast granted me, of which Thou alone knowest, and which is so great, that I can neither fully express it by my feeble words, nor altogether pass it over in silence; and, lest I should lose the remembrance of it through my frailty, I write this to recall it to my memory, and to excite my gratitude. But, my God, do not allow the meanest of Thy servants to be guilty of such an excess of madness as voluntarily to forget, even for a single instant, the gratitude which she is bound to have for the visit with which Thou hast honoured her of Thy pure and gratuitous liberality, and which she has received for so many years without meriting them. For, although I am the most unworthy of all creatures, I declare, nevertheless, that these visits with which Thou hast favoured me far surpass anything that could be merited during this life. I, therefore, implore Thy sweetest mercy to preserve this gift to me for Thy glory, with the same goodness with which Thou hast so liberally bestowed it, without any merit on my part, so that all creatures may glorify Thee eternally for it; since the more my unworthiness is made known, the more resplendently Thy mercy will shine forth.
Chapter 23.
Recapitulation of the gifts already mentioned
–The Saint complains of her infirmity and ingratitude (To be continued)
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