He explained that just three days before Cardinal Lustiger died in August of 2007, he spoke over the phone from Washington, D.C. to the ailing cardinal at his residence in Paris.
“I have just one last request of God, it's just a small request and I know he will not deny me,” Cardinal Lustiger had told Archbishop Sambi.
“What is it?” the archbishop asked.
“I would like to have tea with you one more time,” Cardinal Lustiger said – which were among the last words he ever spoke to the archbishop.
Archbishop Sambi then told Eden that when she approached him at the dinner a month after Cardinal Lustiger's death, he felt that this was his opportunity “to have tea one last time with the cardinal in spirit.”
“Because I, like the cardinal, was a convert from Judaism,” Eden said.
The story of her tea with the archbishop “illustrates, so much better than a simple word of praise, how deep his love was for the Jewish people,” she added.
Not only did the archbishop meet with Eden again, but also with her sister, Rabbi Jennifer Goldstein Lewis, and her father as well.
“The way that the archbishop was so warm, so fatherly and personable, it felt like he was conveying the Holy Father's love for each one of us, which is of course, an extension of God's love for each one of us,” Eden said.
Marianne is a journalist with a background in writing and Catholic theology. When not elaborating on the cinematic arts, she enjoys spending time with people, reading thick books and traveling anywhere and everywhere.