“Lifting up his eyes to his disciples, Jesus said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God! Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled! Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh! Blessed are you when people hate you and exclude you from their company, and revile you and cast out your name as evil because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and dance! For behold – your reward is great in heaven.” /Lk 6:20-23a/
Blessed, blessed, blessed. These are the words that today come of themselves to the lips, thinking of Aida. Is it not so, that when we speak of happiness, certain standards are at work in our minds? Usually we tend to call happiness the moment, or the span of time, when we have achieved what we desire, when our wishes have finally taken shape in reality. And the basic wishes that make a person happy are classic. We are happy when we are wealthy, when we are well fed, when we are joyful, accepted by others, loved by others, when all good is spoken of us, when our name is mentioned in a good light. That is the human standard that we accept as the frame of happiness. And once this frame is built around the space of our life, then we say that we are happy within it.
But Jesus says something different. He does not deny the standard of happiness mentioned above. But he tells us to step a foot higher above the earth and to look, together with Him, beyond this classic frame of happiness, or in other words – this limitation of happiness. He reveals to us entirely different standards of happiness, which without Him we most likely would not even be able to see. Jesus tears away the curtain of sorrow from our lives, and behind it a picture is revealed, that in truth a person is happy even in poverty, that even while hungry he is happy, that happy too are those who weep, those who are cast out, those who are hated, those who are reviled and whose name is forgotten. And is it not so, that putting together these two understandings of happiness, we are speaking of life. Of a life lived in all its forms of expression. And perhaps that is precisely true happiness – to live out a life.
And then Jesus opens the next curtain, which only He can open, saying to his disciples, who have tasted and will yet taste life with all its harsh sides: “Yours is the kingdom of God, you will be filled, you will laugh, you have a great reward in heaven.”
Blessed Aida, for in her life she has tasted a little of all of the above, sip by sip, and today she is already on the other side of the last curtain.
Blessed – in many ways. Is it not happiness to live out a life in a time when historically decisive events are taking place for the Latvian people, and to be at the very epicenter of it all? Together with her contemporaries, to lead her fellow countrymen out of the captivity of Soviet bondage. To be among those who lay the foundations for a new free state.
Many loved Aida for her courage and for her prophetic word. Is it not happiness to be loved? Already in the time of the Soviet decline, what she wrote in the newspapers stood out. One of the readers of that time recalls: “I awaited each of her articles in ‘Padomju Jaunatne’ with impatience. An honest, pure-hearted, and bright person – without conceit.”
During the time of the Awakening, Aida’s publications become especially inspiring. She follows the word of truth and embodies it in each of her articles. She follows the word of truth ever further and further and strives to be ever closer and closer to it. On 17 March 1991, Aida Prēdele makes a decisive choice in her life and receives ordination to the office of pastor from Archbishop Kārlis Gailītis. Blessed? After the archbishop’s death, most of her ministry as a pastor passes under the sign of the ban on women’s ordination, with various accompanying consequences. And yet, stepping a foot higher above the earth and looking, together with Christ, beyond the classic frame of happiness, I want to say: “Blessed!”.
And are there not words written in the Bible by which we can test whether we have been in the right place, whether we have been the right servants, men and women? And these words are clear and simple: “By their fruits you shall know them.”
A theologian, recalling the time of Aida’s ministry in the office of pastor, writes:
“For the generation of young Christians of the nineties, it was a significant time when Aida served at St. Gertrude’s Church and began youth work in the basement. I know many whose path to God began there. Their stories often began similarly: “I was taken to a youth event at the old St. Gertrude’s, and there Aida spoke to me, later baptized me…”.
About Aida we can best learn from what others tell, for she did not like to speak much about herself, she did not like to bask in the center of attention. Her center was Christ; toward Him she worked and around Him she lived, especially toward the end of her life, when illness had changed the rhythm of her life. Aida, in a sermon that has now become a special one, acknowledges:
“The outward manifestations of life, the everyday, successes and losses – all of this is passing, and already tomorrow the order of these things may turn out to be different.” So it had indeed happened in her life.
Did Aida herself consider herself to be happy? Now we will no longer ask. There remains from her a certain Christmas sermon, in which Aida shares reflections on the dearest thing in her life that she has given of herself to the world. In this sermon, behind the public, socially well-known personality, Aida’s hidden part is revealed – a mother, whom perhaps many during her life did not even notice.
Interweaving reflections on the coming of the Son of God into the world with reflections on the birth of her own son, Aida writes in the sermon:
“A son is the dearest thing you give of yourself to others. …… There are, of course, also ideal mothers, who sacrifice their whole life to their child, who wind and tangle their daily cares around the child alone. I envy such women, for I myself do not manage to be one. And yet – we too, those of us who run and stumble and want everything; who patch the world’s worn-out elbows while in our own threadbare coats of happiness the wind whistles – we too sacrifice our life to our child. For our child grows not only from what we say to him, but more from how we live toward him. And there is no scrape on our shoulders that our child has not also felt. There is no harsh word that we received that he has not also felt…..”
In only one thing can one disagree with what Aida wrote – about patching the world’s worn-out elbows. It was not worn-out elbows that Aida patched for the world, but together with her contemporaries, in the active part of her life, Aida cut, basted, and sewed a new garment for the world.
Blessed, blessed, blessed. These are the words that come of themselves to the lips, thinking of Aida and of the words spoken by Christ: “… yours is the kingdom of God ….. your reward is great in heaven.” Amen.
Rudīte Losāne
Chair of the LLSTA
LELB evangelist, chaplain