A Refuge

It is a blazing hot July day in Coimbra, Portugal. At least it felt blazing. We had visited the city on a daytrip from Lisbon and had no real itinerary. When we arrived, it was overcast, and we wandered aimlessly for a while basing our wandering on subtle context clues about the direction of the city center. Now, it was sunny, the day’s heat had set in, and we knew exactly how far the walk back to the train station would be.

Before we started on our return trip, we needed a cool place to re-energize. Someplace where we could sit and relax to prepare mentally and physically for the trek back, and preferably not someplace where I’d need to purchase another coffee or sangria or nata. We needed a refuge… so we headed into Santa Cruz Church.

A hot day outside Santa Cruz Church in Coimbra, Portugal, July 2024

While we recharged, I thought about my own church experience. I’m not an overly religious person, although there have been times in my life when I have regularly attended services. The Catholic Church is a deeply flawed institution, I get that, but sometimes its familiarity has provided me with comfort.  

For instance, everyone attends services (of their preferred denomination) in Air Force Basic Training, because it is the only place you’re guaranteed not to get yelled at. You are safe from the drill sergeant’s bark and constant feeling of inadequacy for an hour a week.  Also, everyone cries during services, at least in their first week.

When I was deployed to the United Arab Emirates I attended services every Sunday evening. The nondescript beige chapel was next to the swimming pool and across from the equally nondescript rec center.  The space was shared by the other denominations on base, so the interior was equally plain. If the wind was just right, you could hear the call to prayer playing over loudspeakers on the host’s side of the installation.

We were a small community of Catholics, led by an active-duty priest. An approachable captain from Massachusetts, who was about half the age, and lacked the pretentious infallibility and judgi-ness of traditional Catholic clergy.  

Aside from being a weekly appointment on an otherwise empty social calendar and an opportunity for reflection, my involvement in this specific religious community offered me much more.

Our priest was part of a monthly rotation where he would lead services at the main Catholic Church in Abu Dhabi. On the weeks that he was saying mass in the city, a group of us would attend too.

Only about 10 percent of people in the UAE are Emirati, and there is a huge population of the migrant laborers from across the Middle East and Asia, including a substantial Catholic population (nearly 850,000 in 2000).

The church was not allowed to be visible from the street outside of its complex, so there no bell towers or stained-glass windows. And in the UAE, services are on Friday night to conform with the Muslim religious week.

Celebrating mass with this diverse community, so many of whom were far from home, working incredibly long hours and in challenging conditions, would be moving even for a lay person.

After church we always had the opportunity to make the event even more meaningful.

One time we visited the bishop at his rectory that was part of the church complex. His home base was in Abu Dhabi, but in addition to the UAE, he was serving Catholics in Oman and Yemen. What I remember most clearly about visiting the elder priest was that a portrait of the UAE’s ruler, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, hung in his sitting room. The Emirati leader’s portrait was not an uncommon site when visiting the country’s malls or government buildings or when transiting the highways, but I was surprised to see it in the bishop’s quarters.

After another church visit during the month of Ramadan when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset, we stopped at a local restaurant for a traditional Iftar dinner, the meal when Muslims break their daily fast.

At a small restaurant like this the menu likely would not have been helpful, and it didn’t matter, because the server brought us a variety of dishes that we shared family style, despite many of us having just met. The food was incredible. Flavorful and distinct from what you’d find in most American restaurants. We left the restaurant later that evening satisfied spiritually and nutritionally.

One final time, when there were only four or five of us, we went to the Cheesecake Factory – yes, the same Cheesecake Factory. This spot was in one of Abu Dhabi’s opulent malls. (Many people have heard about the malls in Dubai, that house ski slopes and aquariums, the malls in Abu Dhabi are equally lavish, plus they have great air conditioning – a necessity in the summer heat. I remember people pouring into the mall on a Sunday night at 8 or 9 p.m. during the summer, when in the US most malls would have been closed for hours.)

While the menu was familiar (and highly caloric), the experience was not. There are cities in the United States that pride themselves on diversity, but I’ve never seen diversity like I saw in this Cheesecake Factory. It was like a little United Nations. An African family, next to an east Asian family, next to a table of local Emiratis, and our table of four Americans.  The differences in our skin color and nationality didn’t even register, all anyone cared about was getting their food and enjoying their time with friends and family.

So, while I may not be able to recite scripture, I managed to learn a lot by going to church during my time in the Middle East.

And after giving ourselves enough time to recharge and reflect, we eventually (slowly) made our way back to the train station for the next leg of our adventure.