Mamie and the Protestants

By Father Rafael Alonso

There is no reason to be surprised by the title of this article. Mamie, whose name was Elisabeth Van Keerbergen, lived in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, until she moved to Spain. In Brussels she moved from house to house.

Her husband, François Treuttens was an enterprising metallurgist that worked with lathes and drills, that he used to make a wide variety of screws and other metal pieces. In one of their houses they turned the first floor into a workshop. Mamie, who at that time was ill, turned her sickbed into an “office” in order to help her husband with the business. She was a very sweet person with a great power of attraction. Many of her husband’s clients belonged to different protestant confessions. Their wives tagged along with their husbands to take advantage of the trip into Brussels to go shopping or just to walk around. Quite a few of them became great friends with Mrs. Treuttens because of these visits.

   While the men were closing the deal with Mr. Treuttens, their spouses would strike up a conversation with Mamie who, though ill, would listen to them patiently in her room. At that time Mamie did not have a very active faith, however her capacity of reasoning, common sense, and sensitivity to other’s sufferings grew during the obligatory meditations caused by the long periods of silence and solitude. It should be pointed out that even though she was unaware, the Holy Spirit was at work in her soul, making her more sensitive through truth and goodness. She was naturally kind-hearted and knew how to find ways to do good for others. Day after day He who worked in the secret of her heart perfected her nature.

   Little by little their business conversations turned into confidences about marriage situations and even the emptiness they felt inspite of their lives which should have been all smiles. Those women opened their hearts manifesting the wounds caused by life itself, daily coexistence and unfulfilled desires, as well as their religious worries, their yearnings for salvation and redemption.

   One of the ladies was Protestant and revealed to Mamie difficulties in her intimate relationship with her husband, and the suspicion, or rather, the proof of her husband’s affair with another woman. Mamie said to her: “My dear Madam, I know that when Catholics have these kinds of difficulties they go to their priests and tell him about it. They receive orientation about what to do. Why don’t you go to your pastor and speak to him about your difficulties?”
The women replied: “Oh no, Madam. My pastor has been married three times already. He is thinking about divorcing his wife so that he can marry a young woman. How could he understand my suffering?”

   Mamie told me that story one day while we were visiting the Shrine of our Lady of Lourdes. And she said: “I then understood the great value of ecclesiastical celibacy.”

   We walked past the crowned statue of our Lady that presides the area around the Shrine. I was already a priest at that time and I thought about the great gift the Lord had given us by inspiring the Church with the union between the Sacrament of Holy Orders and the law of celibacy.

There, amidst her pain, Mamie had received a lesson from the Divine Teacher which would be of use to her later to encourage her sons, the priests, to live faithfully that which they had promised before the bishop on the day of their consecration.

©HM Magazine No. 142 May/June 2008