UPDATED Of Gods and Men - A Martyrs testament

The Community at Tibhirine

On the night of 26-27 March 1996, seven monks from the monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria, belonging to the Trappist Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (O.C.S.O.), were kidnapped in the Algerian Civil War. They were held for two months, and were found dead on 21 May 1996. The circumstances of their kidnapping and death remain controversial.

At about 1:15 AM on 27 March 1996, about twenty armed men came to the monastery of Tibhirine and kidnapped seven monks. Two others, in separate rooms, escaped the kidnappers' notice. After the kidnappers left, the remaining monks attempted to contact the police, but found that the phone lines had been cut. Because of the curfew in force, they had to wait until morning to drive to the police station in Medea. On 18 April, the Armed Islamic Group's communique no. 43 demanded the release of Abdelhak Layada as the price of the monks' lives. On 30 April, a tape with the voices of the kidnapped monks, recorded on 20 April, was delivered to the French Embassy. On 23 May, the Armed Islamic Group's communique no. 44 reported that the Armed Islamic Group had killed the monks on 21 May. The Algerian government announced that their heads had been discovered on May 31; their bodies' whereabouts are unknown. Their funeral Mass was celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral of Algiers on Sunday, June 2. They were buried in the cemetery of their monastery at Tibhirine on June 4, 1996.

The surviving monks of Tibhirine left Algeria, and have set up a monastery near Midelt in Morocco with help from other Trappist monks.

All seven monks killed were of French nationality. They were: Dom Christian de Chergé, Brother Luc Dochier, Father Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Father Bruno Lemarchand, Father Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville.

Of Gods and Men is a 2010 French drama film directed by Xavier Beauvois, starring Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale. The original French title is Des hommes et des dieux, which means "Of Men and Gods". It centers around the monastery of Tibhirine, where the Trappist monks lived in harmony with the largely Muslim population of Algeria, until seven of them were beheaded in a still unclear incident in 1996. The screenplay focuses on the time leading up to their death.



In the months leading up to their deaths, Dom Christian de Chérge wrote a brief testament, a single sheet written on both sides which was opened on Pentecost Sunday 26th May 1996. It reads as follows:

Dom Chritian de Chérge

Facing a GOODBYE.

If it should happen one day—and it could be today— that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to engulf all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was GIVEN to God and to this country. I ask them to accept that the Sole Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I ask them to pray for me— for how could I be found worthy of such an offering? I ask them to be able to link this death with the many other deaths which were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value.


In any case it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I am an accomplice in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, even in that which would strike me blindly.


I should like, when the time comes, to have the moment of lucidity which would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.


I could not desire such a death. It seems important to state this. I do not see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were to be accused indiscriminately of my murder. To owe it to an Algerian, whoever he may be, would be too high a price to pay for what will, perhaps, be called, the “grace of martyrdom,” especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam. I am aware of the scorn which can be heaped on Algerians indiscriminately. I am also aware of the caricatures of Islam which a certain Islamism encourages. It is too easy to salve one’s conscience. By identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideologies of the extremists.


For me, Algeria and Islam are something different: they are a body and a soul. I have proclaimed this often enough, I believe, in the sure knowledge of what I have received from it, finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel, learnt at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, already in Algeria itself, in the respect of believing Muslims.


My death, clearly, will appear to justify those who hastily judged me naïve, or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But these people must realize that my avid curiosity will then be satisfied. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills — immerse my gaze in that of the Father, and contemplate with him his children of Islam just as he sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, the fruit of His Passion, and filled with the Gift of the Spirit, whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playfully delighting in the differences.


For this life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have willed it entirely for the sake of that joy in everything and in spite of everything. In this THANK YOU, which sums up my whole life to this moment, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, my friends of this place, along with my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families, the hundredfold granted as was promised!And also you, the friend of my final moment, who would not be aware of what you were doing. Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU to you, in whom I see the face of God.

And may we find each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both.


AMEN. IN SHA ‘ALLAH.


Algiers, December 1, 1993 – Tibhirine, January 1, 1994.


UPDATE: Further information about the martyrs of Atlas can be found here.

UPDATE 2: The Irish Times review.

Advent Reflections - What does Advent mean to me?

“Everything that was written long ago in the scriptures was meant to teach us something about hope, from the examples scripture gives of how people who did not give up were helped by God.” (Rom: 15:4)

The above excerpt is from the second reading on the second Sunday of Advent. It reminds us that waiting in expectant hope is the central theme of the Advent season. St Paul reminds us that there are examples in the scriptures of people who never gave up hope and can thus serve as an inspiration to us in our Christian journey.

One such example is the prophet Isaiah who is a key figure during Advent. This prophet was writing over 500 years before the coming of Christ. When Babylon invaded Israel, destroyed the Jerusalem and razed the Temple Isaiah hastily gathered fragments of scripture of the earlier part of the book of Isaiah, and brought them with him as the people were taken off into exile to Babylon. Throughout the exile Isaiah encouraged the exiled Israelites, reminding them of the promises of God, reassuring them that one day they would return, and helping them to keep hope alive. Isaiah’s trust was not misplaced; when Cyrus invaded Babylon the Persians freed the Israelites to return to their homeland.

In our own time too, there are ‘examples of people who did not give up hope’ and ‘who serve to teach us something about hope’.

Ingrid Betancourt was born in Colombia and raised in France. As an adult she gave up a life of comfort to return to Colombia to try to better the lives of the people there. In 2002 she was campaigning as a presidential candidate when she was taken captive by the FARC rebels and held as a hostage for the next six and a half years. Her time as a captive in the Jungle was one of terrible mistreatment, of cruelty, imprisonment, isolation, often chained by the neck, day and night. She has written her story in a book called ‘Even Silence has an End’. In this story of great courage she says that the ultimate freedom can never be taken from us – the freedom to choose the kind of person we want to be. She described how reading the Bible allowed her to enter a state of deep meditation and inner peace. The Bible became her trusted companion; what was written there forced her to stop avoiding her true self; she experience the written word as a living voice speaking directly to her. It was thus that she remained strong, waiting in expectant hope for the day of her release.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest in Burma which is one of the poorest countries in the world where one third of the children are malnourished. Suu Kyi is part of a pro-democracy movement campaigning for human rights under a military dictatorship. On her release, just a few weeks ago she showed no sign of bitterness; asked about all she had suffered she simply said, ‘I don’t feel I have suffered greatly – many others have suffered more’. She says she wishes those who imprisoned her no ill. A man who has also campaigned for democracy in Burma says her words are ‘like raindrops promising new life in the monsoon season’, he said his heart was once again filled with joy and expectation and now he can hope and pray again.

This Advent season is a really difficult time for many people in Ireland. Many households are genuinely struggling to make ends meet. The temptation to despair is not far away.

Advent is a call to wait in hopeful expectation. It is a time for recognising that the most important things can never be taken from us, our spirit, our hope, our optimism, our sense of community and care for each other.


Eamonn

Advent Reflections - What does Advent mean to me?

Advent is a time of waiting, but what kind of waiting? Not a distracted, impatient waiting but an attentive, hopeful and joyful one. While it is true that the Gospel reading (Mt 24:37-44) talks of deluge and destruction and other related images, it does so only to call us to “pay attention,” to be vigilant, in order to be ready when the Son of Man comes.



All the situations presented in the reading refer to the daily routine of life – eating, drinking, marrying, reproducing, working, etc. They are no different from the tasks, big and small, that we carry out here and now. The invitation though is not that we stop doing these things but to give our lives a quality of “presence,” of “conscious attention,” that amidst all these, we can try to sense the presence of Someone who is about to come (or more exactly, Someone special who is already here!) right within the trivialities of our daily lives.


Hence, in this first week of Advent, we can “spice up” our routinary lives by practicing “presence” which concretely means “listening, being attentive, waiting in prayer, silence.”


For me, this also means “being led” because the truth is, we are not only the one waiting or searching. It is the Lord who is actually waiting for us, knocking at the doors of our hearts all the time and asking us to pay attention to his presence. It is enough for us to say, "here I am, Lord; lead me..."


The prayer-poem-music that accompanies me in this practice of presence is Blessed John Henry Newman’s “Lead Kindly Light,” one of my favorite prayer-song since the time of my novitiate. Let me share with you the text here.

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod,
Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, home to my God.
To rest forever after earthly strife
In the calm light of everlasting life.


My favorite musical arrangement of the poem is the one of John B. Dykes, entitled Lux Benigna. Let me sing it to you here, with the hope that this may become the song of your heart this Advent as you await our Lord’s coming.

Sr Gemma