Monks of OUR LADY OF ATLAS

----- Forwarded Message -----

Atlas Monks
memorial seat

From: William ...
To: Donald ...
Sent: Friday, 10 May 2013, 19:28
Subject: Re: Monks of Our Lady of Tibhirine

Dear Father Donald,

...

It is such a delight to see the daffodils surmounting the scene of the Atlas memorial seat. On Monday I will be ordering the Seven Red Roses (always allowing a week for Erica's to order in the blooms, delivery on 20th), and my card for the commemoration is ready to hand to you! I was intending to email the images of the card when I returned, but my heart quickens at the sight of your photos from the memorial garden! Please see attachments ('front' and 'inside'). I hope you may approve of the text I have chosen, rather thoughtful, and challenging, from a tractate by St Augustine on St John's Gospel (Tractate LXXXIV. Chapter XV.13, which captured me during the Office of Readings for Wednesday in Holy Week). ....

William

 PS.

Your quotation from Wordsworth's poem has me smiling happily - and into my mind, following your lovely welcome, the poem by Shelley so aptly entitled

 "The Invitation"... "Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs — To the silent wilderness  Where the soul need not repress    Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind

 for Atlas monks 7 red roses

             IN LOVING

            COMMEMORATION

            OF THE MARTYRS OF

            OUR LADY OF ATLAS

The Fullness of Love

 In so far as the martyrs shed their blood for their brothers, what they showed was such as they received from the Lord’s table.

 St. Augustine

 Dearly beloved, that fullness of love with which we must love one another, the Lord defined when he said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.

Doubtless this is what one reads in the Proverbs of Solomon: “If you sit down to eat at a ruler’s table, observe carefully what is before you; and know that you must prepare a similar meal.” For what is the ruler’s table, if not where there is taken the body and blood of him who laid down his life for us? And what is ‘to sit at’, if not to approach humbly? What is ‘to observe carefully what is before you’, if not to ponder so great a favour? What does it mean ‘know that you must prepare a similar meal,’ if not that as Christ laid down his life for us, so we too ought to lay down our lives for our brethren.   

In the words of the apostle Peter: ‘Christ suffered for us, leaving an example, that we should follow in his steps.’ This is ‘to prepare a similar meal’. This the blessed martyrs did with burning love. If our celebration of their memory is not an empty one, and if we approach the Lord’s table in the banquet in which they too ate and had their fill, then as they prepared such a meal, so should we also.

So in fact at this table we do not commemorate them in the same way as we commemorate others who rest in peace, in order to pray for them also. We commemorate them rather so that they may pray for us, that we may follow closely in their footsteps; for they have reached the fullness of that love than which the Lord said there could be none greater. What they showed to their brothers was such as they equally received from the Lord’s table.   

(St. Augustine - Tractate LXXXIV. Chapter XV. 13.)

Atlas Martyrs commemoration 21 May 2012

Sent: Sunday, 20 May 2012, 17:04

Subject: Fw: 7 Roses in waiting 21st May 2012

 

---- Forwarded Message -----
From: William - - -
To: Donald - - -
Sent: Tuesday, 8 May 2012, 20:36
Subject: Atlas Martyrs commemoration card

 

Dear Father Donald,  

 Thank you for sight of the glorious 'burning bush' in the cloister garth - what a sight in the sunlight, aflame with fire!

 

How timely the visit by your visitor, Annabelle, so close to the memoria of the Atlas Martyrs, an association that will bring poignant memories of her husband at the Grove. I am pleased to see that there are new publications following on from the acclaimed film.

 

I am attaching for you 'in advance' images of the card of commemoration that is now finished ready for posting to Erica's on Monday to accompany the seven red roses delivery at the end of next week. I have placed the first image both on the card and on an A4 size 'poster'. The text within the card is Fr. Christian's testament, with a partial print of his handwritten text, and on the back my own reflection which you included in Vol 2 of your "A Heritage Too Big". It is always special for me to share in your commemoration of their lives. It was a lovely gesture to order a DVD for Annabelle. The remaining DVD's will, I imagine, fly out of the Abbey Shop. The film carries the most haunting of images.

 - - -

 Thank you for your welcoming words with regard to my longed-for retreat. I will write formally very soon now. Then the anticipation begins!

 With my love in Our Risen Lord,

William

It is a delight for me to see the Seven Red Roses in place ready for the memoria of the Atlas Martyrs, thank you very much for sending me the photos.

Testament of Dom Christian

When an "A-Dieu' takes on a face.

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 to me 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 Islam ism 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, leamt at my mother's knee, my very first Church, already in Algeria itself, In the respect of believing Muslims.

Our Lady of Atlas, Tibhirine, Algeria

My death, clearly, will appear to Justify those who hastily judged me naive, or idealistic: 'Let him tell us now what he thinks of ill' But these people must realise 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-Oleu 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-Tibhlrine, January 1, 1994. Christian.

ATLAS of the World

From the hidden world of Algeria the words of Fr Christian continue to echo around the globe as the witness of the Seven Brothers rises over the Atlas of the world ....

Lord.,

I love to remember these friends that You gave us
Martyrs to the love that is dearer than life,
Chosen by the spirit for the salvation of souls
Witnesses hidden amidst the continents of men.

The lives that they led bore the risk of true faith
Their being surrendered to the will of God,
Lives that were GIVEN as an offering of love
Lost for the sake of that JOY in everything.

The death they accepted as they bid A-DIEU
Was the final testimony of their mission in life
To establish communion by the Gift of the Spirit
Refashioning the likeness in the face of God.

For all their friends of yesterday and today,
Many hundredfold granted than was promised.,
Their gaze is immersed in that of the Father,
Witnesses risen over the Atlas of the world.

William J. W.

Levinas Emmanuel - Monks of Tibhirine

Precious photo Jan 1996

 Email from friend . . .

Dear Donald,  

I would like to thank you very much for your help.

The pages of the attachment are already very helpful.

They will become a part of the literature the students have to read.

. . .

Thanks for sending me the copy.

God bless you and your work.

Maarten

A Heritage Too Big
Volume 2
Scan of pages 91-95

per Fr. Donald, Nunraw Abbey

17. NOTE: Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas

in the Reading of Christian and Christophe

David Hodges, OCSO, Caldey

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), French philosopher, has exerted a considerable influence on a generation of continental philosophers and religious thinkers. Some of the concepts at the centre of his thought provided Fr. Christian and Fr. Christophe with a catalyst for the expression of their ideals and their understanding of the death at the hands of others which they felt to be approaching. Translations of Emmanuel Levinas and studies of his philosophy have become more widely available in the English speaking world in recent years. The following note indicates some of the references made to him in the writing of Christian and Christophe. (Ed.)

Dom Christian de Cherge, Superior of the monastery of Atlas in Algeria, who was martyred along with six other brothers of the community in 1996, wrote an extraordinary Testament before he died in which he envisaged meeting his death at the hand of a Muslim terrorist and forgave him in advance. He wrote of seeing God in the face of the other, even the assassin, drawing on the categories of the philosopher, Emmanuei Levinas, whom he had studied. He addresses his 'envisaged' assassin: "Qui, pour toi aussi je le veux ce merci et cet 'A-DIEU' en-visage de toi". "En-visage de toi", in whom I see the face of the Absolute Other, and in whom I go to God. God is seen in the face of the assassin, and death and the assassin are seen in the face of God. This could only be seen from the perspective of one who is himself a face of God's love for all. Here was a life totally given to God and to the other, - a vocation that can be seen with some assimilating of Levinas' categories and ideas, and christianising them: the face of the other; responsibility for the Other, even up to substitution and expiation for the other; responsibility for the actions of the other; a deep interiority allowing one to transcend self and to reach to exteriority; being-for-death as being-for-beyond-my death; death as but an opening to the Absolute other. Dom Christian goes further than seeing the face as an encounter with the Absolute other. He is bold enough to contemplate that after his death he will be able to: "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."