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What the Chapel Means to Me
Some thoughts from Rafael Guiu
It all started in 1938 when I first came from Cuba. I was Catholic and as
I walked by the Church of the New Jerusalem on the way to school I would
often say good morning to a man standing in the door. It was the minister of
that Church, a very amiable white haired man. After some time had passed he
invited me in, I joined the choir. There was something magnetic about the
Church. The people were kind and helpful, but there was something deeper in
that Church that attracted me. It was like a spiritual force pulling and
drawing me towards it. It was the sublime teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, I
started reading and the more I read the more I became convinced that it was
for me.
I asked if I could be baptized and then joined and that was the beginning of
my life story with that beautiful Chapel. I started going every week for two
years then
I moved to Greenfield where I got a job and settled there. Still not being
able to be satisfied with the Churches in Greenfield I went every three weeks or so to Cambridge to my wonderful Chapel. Then I met the minister’s daughter and we were married in the Chapel by her father.As time went on I became a proud father of three beautiful daughters and they were baptized there. Still
commuting to from Greenfield and I took them to Sunday School classes. As
they grew they went to college, met their future husbands and they were
married in the same Chapel.
So I have a spiritual investment in this sacred house of the Lord and I do
not want to see go for any amount of money in the world. I still think that
the work that goes in there it warrant any sacrifice that any one can do to
keep it viable.
Rafael M J. Guiu
(a life servant of the Church)
February 2001
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