A Heritage Too Big For Us Vol. 1
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The Atlas Martyrs
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Abbot of Nunraw 1997 |
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On May 21, 1996, seven monks of the Cistercian-Trappist monastery of Our Lady of Atlas in Algeria died by assassination at the hands of terrorists: Fr. Christian de Chergé, Br. Luc Dochier, Fr. Christophe Lebreton, Br. Paul Favre-Miville, Br. Michel Fleury, Fr. Bruno Lemarchand, and Fr. Célestin Ringeard.
In my heart a single phrase was resounding: "We will not leave our dead alone, we shall come back!" (Dom Bernardo Olivera, OCSO)
From the beginning the General Chapter has been marked by the luminous witness of our brothers of Atlas who have reminded us of the meaning, the value, and the fecundity of a cenobitic life in the radical following of Christ, rooted in the local Church, responsible for a particular people, open to dialogue between religions and cultures. (Message of the General Chapter of 1996)
Tibhirine was for us an icon of our vocation as Christians seeking God in the land of Algeria, that is to say in a Muslim land. . . . I think there is no other monastery in the world which has such a general relationship with the members of the local Church. Most of the priests, religious men and women, as well as the laity living permanently in the diocese, had a personal bond with the community. (Mgr. Henri Teissier, Archbishop of Algiers)
I had hardly arrived in their house, so poor and welcoming at the same time, when deep within me, coming I know not from where, I had the powerful feeling that the true monks of today were right there. And I remembered the words of Jean Baptiste Metz: that the religious life can no longer be understood away from that precariousness which tells of its openness to the eschatological. (Fr. Philippe Hémon, Tamié)
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| Date de creation du monaster |
March 27–May 21 Fifty-six days of abduction.
March 27 Abduction of seven monks in their monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, Tibhirine.
March 28 Paris demands that Algeria put all its forces into operation to free them.
April 14 Pope John Paul II, in Tunisia, declares that his thoughts "turned first of all" to the seven Trappists.
April 25 The aman, the protection of the previous emir, is revoked. The GIA justify their kidnapping of the monks "still alive" and demand of President Chirac "an exchange of your prisoners for our prisoners."
April 28 More than 2000 people pray in Notre Dame in Paris with the leaders of different religions.
April 30 The French ambassador receives an audio cassette confirming that the monks are still alive, as well as a letter laying down the conditions for negotiation.
May 1 A day of prayer is observed world-wide in Cistercian monasteries.
May 7 In Paris, Muslim leaders issue a letter to the kidnappers condemning their action as a violation of Islamic precepts.
May 9 The French authorities affirm that they will not negotiate with the GIA.
May 21 The GIA affirm: "We have cut the throats of the seven monks."
May 27 Pentecost. Testament of Fr. Christian is opened. "Words to inspire the world" give keynote to reflections on the events.
May 30 Cardinal Léon-Étienne Duval dies at ninety-two. The remains of the seven monks are found. Abbot General Bernardo Olivera arrives in Algiers.
June 2 Cardinal Arinze preaches panegyric at Mass in Algiers for the seven monks and Cardinal Duval.
June 4 Transfer of remains by helicopter to Tibhirine. Burial of the seven monks surrounded by mourning Muslim neighbors.
July 16 Dhameil Zitouni, the assassin, is ambushed and killed by other rebels.
August 1 Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran is killed by a bomb on his own doorstep.
October 5 Fr. Jean-Pierre addresses the General Chapter on "Present Situation of Atlas."
October 12 At Tre Fontane, Rome, Archbishop Teissier preaches at Mass of General Chapter. Pope sends message from hospital.
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| Cemetery of monastery Tibhirine Algeria |
Among those who lived through the events of the forced entry of the GIA terrorists (Armed Islamic Group) and the abduction of seven monks on the night of March 26–27, 1996, three eyewitnesses wrote accounts of what happened. Fr. Jean-Pierre was the porter of the monastery, who observed some of the activities of that night. Fr. Amadeus's room was close to the medical supplies, which diverted attention from his locked door. The third witness was one of twelve members of the Ribât group staying in the guest quarters. They were fortunate to remain undetected. Each became aware of what was happening in his own way. It is remarkable that so much could have been going on, within the same walls, without everyone's being alerted. A clear, composite picture of events emerges from the independent accounts of these witnesses.
At the midday hour of March 26, 1996, the community Mass was celebrated as usual. As the brothers heard the Gospel of the day, they could not have anticipated the manner in which the words from John 8:21–30, "I am going away and you will seek me," were to be realized tragically in seven of them that very night.
At 5:30 p.m., the end of the working day, the time people stopped coming to the dispensary, Fr. Jean-Pierre locked up for the night. The Security Services had been insisting on early closing for some time. At 1:15 a.m., Fr. Jean-Pierre, sleeping in the porter's room next to the entrance, was awakened by the sound of voices. Remaining concealed, he made out two or three persons speaking in Arabic and immediately realized it could only be the "brothers from the mountain" who had somehow gained access to the cloister. A man with a tommy-gun joined the others. From another angle Jean-Pierre saw a turbaned figure, also with a tommy-gun slung across his shoulder, making an entrance near Br. Luc's room; conversation was low and there was no violence, so he did not realize the gravity of the situation. He had not heard the doorbell and therefore assumed that Fr. Christian had forestalled him and had taken matters in hand just as he had done on that all too acutely remembered forced entry of Christmas Eve, 1993. He had no idea that some twenty terrorists were deployed. He felt it wiser not to show himself and prayed anxiously for them to go away. The thought of death and martyrdom had often occurred to him but not the possibility of being taken hostage. He heard someone ask "Who is the chief?" and a reply, "That's him, the chief. You must do what he tells you," followed by comings and goings in the entrance hall. Then silence, and the sound of the street door being closed. He thought Christian had sent the intruders away. He went to go to the bathroom before returning to bed. The lights had been turned off; everything seemed in order, except for some clothing scattered about. He wondered, "Did they ask for some clothing that they did not like and threw there on their way out?" Everything else seemed normal. There was nothing more to be done. Jean-Pierre did not know that the lights had been turned off by Fr. Amadeus.
Fr. Amadeus had been awakened by noise that made him think of Br. Luc looking for medicines, except that Luc would not be so rough. He could then hear voices but not Luc's familiar asthmatic cough. Someone tried his door. It was locked and the intruders seemed to turn their attention back to the medicine cartons. Amadeus used his torch to check his watch. It was 1:15 a.m. He dressed silently. The figures were too close to the door for him to see much through the keyhole as they continued to ransack the medicine stores. After activities had stopped, he eased his door open. The lights were on. Everything was in disarray. In the adjoining room of Br. Luc, medicines and books were on the floor. The new little radio had gone. Expecting the worst, he rushed to Fr. Christian's office, where Christian had been sleeping recently in order to be near those at the entrance. There also everything was turned upside down, the electric typewriter and camera had disappeared, and the telephone had been removed. Of Fr. Christian and Br. Luc there was no sign.
"What about the guests?" It was at this point that he quickly extinguished the lights and hurried to find out about the twelve members of the Ribât who were in the guest rooms near the community bedrooms. The doors of the monks' rooms all lay open, lights on, everything scattered about and the brothers gone. In great fear for the guests he continued along the passage through the enclosure door to the guest quarters. There everything was quiet. The night-lights were on and the bedroom doors closed. He knocked on the first door. He found the occupant wide awake and waiting, having been roused earlier by another guest in the group. The two listened in alarm. They thought they heard Célestin's voice among others and supposed he might have taken ill and that the brothers wanted to move him downstairs, or might have wanted to take him to the hospital, but that was impossible in the night. Boldly, one of the two half-opened the monks' enclosure door. They knew immediately that the terrorists had come again. When at last there was silence and the hallway was empty, they still could not risk making themselves conspicuous or try to escape by the external stairs, fearing that armed men were still around. They decided to return to their rooms.
The intruders made a quick departure. Did they think they had their full catch of hostages after they had rounded up seven of the monks? They would not have known that two monks, Br. Paul and Fr. Bruno, had arrived just that previous evening, another indication of a premeditated kidnapping. Police findings showed that taxis had been requisitioned at the village of Ain Elrais. These were later found abandoned. After that the kidnappers seem to have used mules to cover their trek into hiding in the mountains.
As the guest in the room nearest the monks' enclosure waited in his bed with thoughts of death, listening for further sounds, Fr. Amadeus appeared with a torch saying, "Are you there? The monastery is empty. There isn't a single father left!" Together they began their search. The guest noticed that Br. Paul's room was littered with the wrappings of gifts and sweets he had just brought back for Easter. He noticed one box left untouched because, he guessed, the chocolates contained alcohol. He later placed these in the refrigerator to await the return of the brothers. A large cheese was likewise left lying near the statue of Our Lady, because it had the large Savoy Cross on the Tamié wrapping. In the kitchen, refectory, and cloister they found little disturbed, except that the telephone line had been cut. They went toward the porter's room. "Jean-Pierre, it's Amadeus, are you there?" To their great relief Jean-Pierre, fully dressed, opened the door with his usual peaceful smile. They told him, "We are the only ones here, all the others have been taken away."
The first thing to do was to contact the Security Services, but the telephone lines had been cut. It was later found that the wires had been severed fifteen kilometers away, another mark of a well-planned raid. They went to the nearest house with a phone, only to discover that they could not make a call. The family was terribly frightened, and Fr. Jean-Pierre stayed awhile to comfort and encourage them.
By 3:00 a.m. nothing more could be done, and it was decided to rest until the office of Vigils. Amadeus said he had not finished the rosary he had begun while the others were out. Together they completed the prayer. "Amadeus radiated an extraordinary peace," the guest noticed. As arranged, they began Vigils at 5:15, three guests feeling honored to hold the place in choir of the abducted brothers, as best they could. It was thus in the chapel that the other Ribât members, nine sisters, found them.
At dawn there was an unusual silence. The call of the muezzin did not mingle with the sound of the monastery bell. It seemed that the villagers already knew of the attack and were fearful. The twenty or so faithful who normally came to the mosque, part of the monastery building, for dawn prayer did not come. Fr. Jean-Pierre and one of the guests drove off through the mist and arrived at the police station at Médéa at 7:15 a.m. The commandant was on the point of setting off on a planned operation but gave them his full attention. He immediately contacted his superiors and obtained authorization to inform Archbishop Teissier, the French Ambassador, and the Algerian Press Service. All was conducted in Arabic and with surprising alacrity.
Ten members of the Ribât group departed for Algiers in two cars. One had to wait for other transport. Another decided to stay with Jean-Pierre and Amadeus that night. The group reassembled at the Diocesan Center, "in communion with our wounded Church and at the same time conscious that, as Sr. Jean-Marie said, our brothers were living or were already in the light of God, and it was for us to watch with them. This is why we felt it right to continue our programme."
During the day a contingent of police and then a detachment of soldiers came to investigate. When they began to enter the cloister they were stopped by the guest who asked them to stay at the entrance, using the words of Fr. Christian on an earlier occasion: "This is a place of prayer and of peace. We do not enter it with arms." In each case the armed men respected this situation. In the evening Jean-Pierre and Amadeus accepted the military instructions and were guests at a hotel in Médéa for that night. The Ribât guest accompanied them and admired how Jean-Pierre and Amadeus, in their rough jackets and woolen bonnets, spoke with their usual simplicity and peacefulness to the hotel manager, the head of the prefecture, the chief of police, and everyone who welcomed them and wanted to fuss over them.
History of Cistercian Monks (Trappists) in Algeria 1843–1904, 1934–97 The fate of the Cistercian monks of Our Lady of Atlas at Tibhirine, like the many Trappists who completed their special religious calling in Algeria before them, is marked by its Cistercian character. The present Constitutions of the Order, approved as recently as 1990, express the exceptional nature of certain communities living in non-Christian environments: "In God's providence monasteries are holy places not only for those who are of the household of the faith, but for all persons of good will" (ST 30.B). North Africa has always been exceptional, because it has held little hope of local recruitment, and more especially because it has provided a Christian presence of a purely spiritual character in a non-Christian milieu.
The lives of the young monks who died in the early years of Staouëli are remembered not for the forces of political power of French colonization, which differed so much from those of the conflict of Algerian Independence, but for the uncompromising pursuit of their own monastic vocation of silence, prayer, and labor.
The commendable achievements attributed to the monks for a number of good reasons—their contributions in agriculture, education, evangelism, and medicine—may be a credit to them but are extrinsic to their real aim. These achievements demonstrate both the reality of the social, religious, and political conditions and how little these impinge upon the life of the anonymous monk following the simple Cistercian vocation of austerity and prayer. The lot of the Atlas monks in 1996 was apparently at the mercy of external circumstances, as was that of their predecessors at Staouëli in the previous century, and at the same time distinctive in the primacy of its spiritual goal and faithfulness to that goal alone.
The first Cistercian monastery in Algeria was founded at Staouëli in 1843 by Aiguebelle with strong backing from the French government. Within five months of their arriving in North Africa, one young monk died. Four others, also in their prime, followed, and in the year 1848 alone ten monks died of malaria. These young men came from Aiguebelle and were to be joined over the years by monks from Bellefontaine, whose interest in Algeria down to three of the martyrs of 1996 has never diminished, and from Melleray and Timadeuc. At the height of its activity there were some 100 monks, assisted by 120 workers, laboring on the development of Staouëli. Their vocation was to live a religious ideal of remarkable zeal and austerity in a spirit of separation from the world. They were, however, not entirely unaware of the political system that could patronize them for other motives. The chronicler wryly comments: "Thus the monastery, its model farm, and its industries served both the spiritual and the material interests of the new country, organized by sword and plough by Marshal Bugeaud and his soldiers, but educated by Cross and plough by Abbot Francis-Regis and his monks."
The spiritual and material success of Staouëli were such that, in the spirit of the times, Napoleon III came in May 1865 to visit the monks there and brought Charles de Foucauld to stay in 1896 and 1901. There were few signs to give warning of the next sudden twist in the monastery's being hostage to secular powers. The doubtful support of a liberal non-religious regime was followed by the period of fierce anti-clericalism that led to the dispersal of thousands of religious in France. The fear of expulsion, the possibility of confiscation, and the extreme political and economic problems of the motherhouse, Aiguebelle, brought the sudden decision to sell the flourishing monastery of Staouëli.
The same turmoil that brought the exile of so many religious caused the Abbey of Dombes to establish a refuge in Slovenia, which became Our Lady of Deliverance (1881). In 1934, suffering under a very different menace from the Yugoslavian government, the abbot of Deliverance sent a nucleus of five monks to Algeria. This house was to have been a refuge, but it came too late to save the monks of Deliverance from the Nazis and the Communists. The small nucleus of monks sent from Our Lady of Deliverance was to become, after initial difficulties, the community Our Lady of Atlas. Thus within a very short period of cataclysmic political changes in Europe, the monks, following unswervingly their Cistercian monastic life of seclusion, had returned to Algeria. In the small cemetery at Staouëli were the burial places of the monks who had run the course of their monastic vocation on Algerian soil, but now the Cistercians had no claim to that property.
After trying unsuccessfully in two other places, they found the location at Tib-Hirine, 'the gardens', a nineteenth-century English colonial farm. Seven kilometers south of Médéa and at 1100 meters altitude, it commands a magnificent view. In 1938, after four years of hard work, the small group of five pioneers had doubled in number. Some monks, including some survivors from Staouëli, came from Aiguebelle to strengthen the community. During the 1939 war, the community grew to twenty persons. Several monks were mobilized but the monastery was safe. The immediate post-war years saw expansion in numbers and in buildings. The community reached the number of thirty-five persons, including a living link with the past in the person of Fr. Francis d'Assise, who had been a novice at Staouëli and had returned to lay life when the monastery closed in 1904. This progress peaked in the year 1952 when Our Lady of Atlas was raised to the full status of an abbey.
At this point a new epoch in the story of Algeria was about to commence. During the war of independence beginning in 1954, the marabouts blancs ('white monks') enjoyed unique freedom from the conflict. The monastery seemed to be a shelter from the troubles of the external world. Thus in 1956 a colony of refugee Muslim children was placed in an encampment in the shadow of the abbey. Sensing the same protection, families from the neighboring massif of Tammesguida, fleeing from the fighting, came to settle two kilometers along the road and thus created the small village of Tibhirine.
Only in one instance did the monks find themselves in the full flow of events when, in 1959, two of the community, Fr. Matthew and Br. Luc, were kidnapped by the ALN (Armée de Libération Nationale). When Br. Luc was identified as the toubib, the doctor, who gave his services free, the two hostages were quickly released. Although Br. Luc soon left for France for treatment for his asthmatic condition, the monastery was not disturbed during his absence.
Br. Luc did not return to Atlas until 1964, to find the community in a very different situation in the new conditions of Algerian independence. Islam had become the state religion. In fact, the community, with much negotiating by Archbishop Duval of Algiers, was only tolerated by the authorities. The severe restrictions included never exceeding the number of twelve persons. As for the farming unit, out of 374 hectares, 360 hectares were to be given up to the state for redistribution to the local people. Only ten of the remaining fourteen could be cultivated. A further plot was given up for the site of a local school to save long journeys by the children.
With only a handful of monks remaining at Atlas and so many obstacles to its future, it seemed ironic that the coup de grace was to come from Rome. On November 13, 1963, Abbot General Dom Gabriel Sortais decided on its closure. The question had been debated at the General Chapter, and unless reinforcements could be found, the abbot general was authorized to proceed with its closure. Archbishop Duval, in Rome for Vatican Council II, persisted in defending the small community. Dom Gabriel Sortais died on the evening of his decision. His successor, Dom Ignace Gillet, was able to find volunteers, and so in 1964 eight new members, four from Aiguebelle, and four from Timadeuc (including Fr. Jean-Pierre Schumacher) came to the assistance of Our Lady of Atlas. From 1963 to 1984 it lived modestly like the Church in Algeria, or rather it survived with an ever greater awareness that nothing was ordinary for a community of prayer on this morsel of land at the foot of the Atlas mountains. In March 1984, a change of status from abbey to simple priory corresponded better to reality and at the same time safeguarded their autonomy. The election of Fr. Christian de Chergé in 1984 was the first time in twenty-two years that the community had voted for its own superior. A new phase in the life of the community had begun.
At the beginning of the year 1992, the interruption of the electoral process led Algeria to a volatile situation, with the suppression of the FIS as a political party, the imprisonment of its leaders, and, later, the formation of several armed groups, in particular the GIA, who demanded that all foreigners leave the country by December 1, 1993.
On December 14, 1993, twelve Croatian Catholics known to the monks had their throats cut at Tamesguida, a few kilometers from the monastery. A week later, on Christmas Eve, the monastery of Atlas was visited by six armed brothers from the mountain around 7:15 p.m. There was no bloodshed, but the visit was a turning point in the consciousness of the monks.
The leader of the group, Emir Sayah Attiya, was known as a terrorist of redoubtable violence. He was responsible for the death of the twelve Croatian Catholics near the monastery and, according to the security forces, had cut the throats of 145 persons. His exchange with Fr. Christian was extraordinary. Fr. Christian, appealing to the Koran, told him that the monastery was a place of prayer where no arms had ever entered; he requested that their conversation take place outside the monastery. Attiya agreed to this. He presented to the monks, whom he recognized as being religious like himself and his group of Islamists, three demands of cooperation. To each one Christian replied that it was not possible. Each time the armed Emir said, "You have no choice," but each time Christian replied, "Yes, we have a choice." Attiya left saying that he would send his emissaries with a password. As he was leaving Christian said: "You have come here armed, just as we are preparing to celebrate Christmas, the feast of the Prince of Peace." Attiya replied, "I am sorry, I did not know."
The miracle was not only that Sayah Attiya left that evening without cutting the throats of the monks or brutalizing them but that he did not return and did not send his emissaries. When about two months later he was seriously wounded in a confrontation with the security forces, he suffered for nine days in the mountain district nearby before dying, but he did not send for the monastery doctor, which was one of the demands to which Christian had said that he could not respond.
At a meeting of the community on the day after that Christmas, the majority of the brothers were in favor of an immediate departure. On December 27, Archbishop Teissier visited and explained the effect that a sudden departure of the monks would have on all Christians in the diocese. He suggested a plan for a more gradual withdrawal. After further discussions in January, the monks decided on a plan that included the possibility of remaining on "if there is no obstacle."
Eleven religious of the diocese of Algiers were assassinated in five different attacks during 1994–1995 (a Marist Brother, a Sister of the Assumption, two Spanish Augustinian Sisters, four White Fathers, two Sisters of Notre Dame des Apôtres, and one Little Sister of the Sacred Heart of Charles de Foucauld). Each time the monks of Tibhirine asked themselves the same question: should they leave or should they stay.
The monks never bought their safety by any concession whatever, and they never condoned any form of violence; but for them every person, even a terrorist, was a human person worthy of understanding. For this reason, while prepared for the worst, they felt the possibility of martyrdom as a living tension of charity working both ways. Each time they decided to stay, it was a decision taken after prayer and dialogue, a decision that was lucid, courageous, serene, and unanimous. Not one of them desired martyrdom. Fr. Christian, speaking to a group of lay people shortly before his abduction, said that such a desire would be a sin since it would be to desire that a "terrorist brother" should sin against the divine commandment "Thou shalt not kill."
The abduction the seven monks of Atlas by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) lasted almost two months. Secrecy still veils the terrorists' actions in the assassinations. The history of events so far put together depends on the information available almost exclusively from one side. In the absence of evidence of the actual execution, which is obviously not forthcoming from those actually implicated, we can account only for the abduction on March 26 and the eventual recovery of the remains on May 30. Only after the actual slaughter of the seven monks was it made public that an audiotape existed of voices of the hostage monks, about whom there had been no information for weeks, showing that they were still alive on April 27. On the tape, the terrorists threatened that they would slit the throats of the monks if the French authorities refused to negotiate. The tape was temporarily kept secret. It was not even revealed to the Algerian security forces. And so twenty-one days later, a message from the same source declared, "They cut off the discussion which had begun—and we cut the monks' throats."
By definition martyrs speak for themselves; they have earned that special title of "witness" or martyr by giving their very lives. These followers of Christ had to articulate for themselves their spirit of love and unflinching faith in the face of direct threats, in the close proximity of assassins, and in sight of repeated killings. One can learn why the monks felt called to remain faithful to their vocation in solidarity with their neighbors by understanding something about the personalities and backgrounds of these seven: Christian de Chergé, Luc Dochier, Christophe Lebreton, Paul Favre-Miville, Michel Fleury, Célestin Ringeard, and Bruno Lemarchand.
Biographical Notes
Fr. Christian (Christian de Chergé), a priest fifty-nine years old, was prior of the monastery. He entered Atlas in 1969 and made his novitiate at the abbey of Aiguebelle. Father Christian's first experience of Algeria was growing up in that country as a child for three years while the 1939 war raged in Europe. One of his brothers tells that at that time Christian was impressed by the way in which Muslims prayed to God: "Our mother never ceased saying to him that they prayed to the same God as he did." Early impressions and love for Algeria were revived and reinforced much later during twenty-seven months of national service in the middle of the Algerian war of independence. It was during this period that his love of Algeria became rooted and the rest of his life marked by an experience he had. He was posted in a village of the Special Administrative Section. He had made friends with a young Algerian rural policeman. One evening they were walking together when they were attacked by some nationalists of the FLN. The young Algerian interposed his body to protect Christian, and they got away. The young Algerian had saved his life, but two days later his body was found with his throat cut. Christian never forgot this incident.
Christian, born in 1937, was the son of a distinguished French general. In this family of the old French nobility he and his seven brothers and sisters were formed in the active practice of their religion. At an early age he became aware of his vocation, and at twenty he entered the Séminaire des Carmes in Paris. "From the beginning," recounts a contemporary and friend, Claude Bressolette, "one was impressed by his natural distinction and reserve. Little by little, behind the smile and the gentle regard, one discerned what I can only call an elegance of heart." He recalls that friendship was the subject of their dissertations, and that Christian's had great spiritual depth.
This gift of making friends characterized his relations within his extended family and led to ever widening contacts and friendships within the Cistercian Order. He was invited to share his experiences with the monks and nuns directing novices in France. He spoke every Sunday by phone to his friend, Dom Étienne Baudry of Bellefontaine, during those last critical months. He had a special affinity with the community of Latroun (Israel/Jordan) because of their common Arab-Muslim context. In 1984 he attended the General Chapter in Holyoke US, and he made new friends among American monks, for he spoke English in addition to French and some Arabic. He wrote to Abbot John Eudes Bamberger of Genesee for his feastday: "This is a good occasion for a big thank you for all the attention and kindness you showed me during the General Chapter. I have often said since then that thanks to you and through you I have discovered another image of 'America' and the echo of the same authenticity in a very different economic and cultural context." He had been elected prior of Tibhirine earlier that year. His regular correspondence with the abbot general shows his great feeling for the Cistercian Order. His letters to Dom Bernardo chronicle the deepening community consensus and commitment in the years leading to the monks' martyrdom.
Christian was a contemporary of Vatican II. He assimilated the theological insights of the great dogmatic and pastoral constitutions. He was a man with a sense of the Church, and after ordination in 1964 he served as chaplain to the school of the Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre. He had good relations with Cardinal Marty. There was affection, humor, and simplicity in their exchanges. When Fr. Christian felt the time had come and that he had satisfied his obligations to the archdiocese of Paris, he obtained from Cardinal Marty approval to follow his long-cherished calling to Algeria. Visits to the Benedictine abbey in Morocco since 1961 had helped him to acquire a better understanding of and a better rapport with the land and its people. In his desire to deepen his dialogue he had been studying Arabic and taking every opportunity to meet people with known sympathy for the country of his choice.
Isolated in Islamic territory, the monastery at Tibhirine depended on monks' coming from other communities. The case of Fr. Christian was different. His first choice was to be accepted for Our Lady of Atlas, although it was necessary to make his monastic novitiate at Aiguebelle. Besides monastic formation he received encouragement to study the Arabic language and culture for two years with the White Fathers in Rome before he finally settled into the unique role in Islamic-Christian dialogue that came to distinguish his monastery. He actively supported and shared in the Ribât association of dialogue and friendship between the two faith communities. After a lapse of such meetings, Christian invited the group to meet again at Tibhirine in March 1996. For Christian this dialogue was no passing interest. It became the perspective of a wide and deep love. "It is a sort of 'microclimate,'" he said in an address to the General Chapter of 1993, "which frees our faith from all human respect and false reserve. Moreover, there are those values that animate Islam and which we also ordinarily expect to find among monks." Menaced more than ever by being invaded by an armed band on Christmas Eve 1993, Christian felt impelled to compose a letter to the terrorist chief. In it he referred to those common religious values and his one desire to remain in the country of his love:
Our state as monks binds us to God's choice for us, which is prayer and the simple life, manual work, hospitality, and sharing with everyone, especially the poor. . . . We are very conscious of having received much from Algeria and through her, from this Islam which prompts believers to emulate good actions until the day of the Lord. If, some day, Algerians judge that we are not wanted, we shall respect their desire and leave with very much regret. I know that we would continue to love them all, together, and you among them.
His own preferential choice was to reside there always, with the daily prayer on his lips, "Lord, disarm me and disarm them." Fr. Mounios, the parish priest at Médéa, vividly recalls: "He was a man with a fine bearing and of remarkable intelligence. Thanks to his finesse he quickly adapted himself to the local people."
By his bedside after his abduction there was found the book of Sheik Khaled Bentounès, Le Soufisme, Coeur de Islam. Br. Paul had just brought the book the evening before. It would have been Christian's last reading, in his quest to the end for unity. The book reflects the spirit of the friends of Islam and those who continue in the hope "that we would make our journey together towards God and towards man. This is the urgent concern God has given to us today, and we all pray for it."
Brother Luc (Paul Dochier), medical doctor, eighty-two years old. He entered the Abbey of Aiguebelle in 1941 and left for Algeria in 1946.On the eve of his abduction, the intensity of the threat of violence was too great even for Luc's ever-jovial nature. With utter clarity he wrote to a friend, "We can only exist as men by willingly becoming the image of Love, as manifested in Christ, who, though innocent, chose to suffer the fate of the unjust." This seriousness and clarity of intent are all the more significant in one whose sense of humor remained to the end, overcoming painful attacks of asthma and the fatigue of uninterrupted attendance on the sick in the monastery dispensary. He could gently make fun of misplaced pretensions. His own ideal that nothing is more important than the love of God was exercised with a cheerful spirit. In his words, he was "an oldie, used but not disabused, worn out but not withered." To think of him is to think of a happy person. He had prepared his own burial liturgy to include a tape of an Edith Piaf song with the words "No, nothing—but nothing—no, I regret nothing."
The long life of Br. Luc presents a beautiful, consistent picture set within a clear cut-frame of war, service to others, love of God. Born in 1914 at Bourg-de-Peage, in the Drôme region of France, Luc Dochier found his first vocation quickly in medicine. From his early years at the faculty of medicine in Lyons, he kept many friends who later sent him medicines that he needed for his dispensary at Tibhirine. Army service took him as a military doctor to North Africa in 1939. His return to France after this first military experience brought a growing sense of the futility of war and the desire to care for the victims of the conflict. He therefore volunteered to care for the prisoners of war held in German camps. His offer was made with the condition that the father of a large family should be set free. The Germans agreed. Conditions in the concentration camps were appalling, but what disturbed the young doctor most was the treatment of Russian prisoners. He took care of them for months. One of those he came to befriend in this way drew his portrait with a piece of charcoal, a souvenir now all the more cherished by his family.
At his liberation Luc understood that he wanted to save lives and thus to serve God. He decided to join the Cistercians. After some years in formation at the Abbey of Aiguebelle, he left for Tibhirine in 1946. His love story with Algeria and its poor people was to continue for fifty years without interruption except for breaks in 1959 and 1992 when his acute asthmatic condition brought him back to France for treatment. After that, he knew that his condition could only deteriorate, but he insisted on returning to Médéa. He said, "I will retire definitively when health forces me" and obstinately pushed himself to the limits, sometimes seeing up to seventy patients a day in the small dispensary. These people were proud of him and his clinic, "the best managed within 100 kilometers," they would say. He had won a respect and affection that amounted to a veritable personality cult. He was universally referred to as the toubib, the doctor.
Not many have had the uncommon destiny of being kidnapped twice in a lifetime. Luc was abducted with Fr. Matthew in 1959 when the ALN (Armée de Libération Nationale) wanted hostages to bargain for the Imam of a Mosque at Médéa who was imprisoned. They spent a week on forced night-marches, until one day a rebel, just arrived, recognized the toubib who had tended him when he was seriously ill: "Are you crazy, keeping this person? This is the doctor who cares for our people freely." The two exhausted monks were set free on the main road near Médéa and picked up by an army convoy. Luc, as an asthmatic, returned to France to recover, and Matthew had a break at home in Italy. The toubib did not return until 1964, but the monastery was not disturbed any more by the ALN.
His seniority among the monks and his practical apostolate to the sick gave a distinctive style to the extensive influence of "this powerfully good, this truly strong character," as his friend describes him. United with his brothers in the witness of martyrdom, Br. Luc exemplifies the richness and variety of character and embodiment of charity possible in the witness of Christian community.
"There is no true love of God without an unreserved acceptance of death."
Fr. Christophe (Christophe Lebreton), forty-five years old, a priest, was subprior and novice master. He entered the Abbey of Tamié in 1974 and left for Algeria in 1987.The forced entry into the monastery by the armed guerrilla band at Christmas 1993 was a turning point in his spiritual journey. Fr. Christophe wrote: "This Christmas was not like others. It was charged with significance. Like Mary we keep all these things that have happened. We continue to ask ourselves what has been initiated in our hearts. Like a sword the significance has pierced us."
Christophe is too easily and not very profoundly identified as a "student of '68." As a schoolboy of eighteen, he had his transistor going all day in May 1968 to reports of the student agitators demonstrating in Paris. His regret at not being able to join them was only one link in a restless quest. At the age of twelve, news of the pending death of his grandmother from cancer made him feel rebellious and wish to take her place. He was an ardent person, enthusiastic in whatever he took up. He was the seventh child in a family of twelve children. A precocious religious vocation ended with departure from the junior seminary and, as he was always ardent in his views, total separation from religion. Marxism had its dramatic attraction until, in the middle of a demonstration, he realized in one stroke the futility of his course and how he was being politically manipulated. He was left with nothing to believe in until a chance encounter with the Emmaus movement and Abbé Pierre. Recovering religious commitment he also discovered love through relationship with a woman.
This new awareness could have led him to marriage, the value of which he never denied, but the challenge of love led him to understand that the love deep in his heart was from God and led him to the Church as the place where this love, his vocation, could express itself totally.
Christophe discovered Algeria and the monastery of Our Lady of Atlas at the beginning of 1970 during his national service. For his National Service he had taken the option for serving the assistance scheme for Algeria, teaching students and helping with handicapped children. A priest friend brought him to Tibhirine on several occasions. The extreme poverty of the neighboring people made an indelible impression. He was sure he would return. In 1974 at the age of twenty-four, after tentative studies for a degree in law, his decision was made. He entered the Monastery of Tamié (Savoy). During his novitiate, aspirations to radical poverty revived the attraction of Tibhirine, and it was there that he made his first vows. But for a young monk the facilities for formation were sparse indeed. The community was small and elderly. Resources in personnel for teaching were better at Tamié, and the presence of contemporary young monks provided a better challenge for formation. Christophe spent the next six years at Tamié studying and using his woodworking skills at manual labor. During this time his monastic experience was affirmed and deepened. Later, when he was called to assist the sister Abbey of Dombes in the capacity of guestmaster, Br. Christophe was described as "a monk of thirty-eight years, happy in this altruistic life, collected, convivial, entirely turned to God."
In 1987 an encounter with Fr. Christian led him to return to Algeria. He brought with him a talent for animating people and bringing them together. In 1990 he introduced his Algerian friends to twenty-eight members of his family who attended his ordination to the priesthood, and lasting friendships were made. His last visit home to Toussaure, Drôme, was in 1995 for the funeral of his father. To the suggestion of leaving Algeria, he replied: "Why should I have the choice to flee, while the Algerians do not? They are the victims, not us."
The Islamic-Christian interreligious dialogue entered more and more into his prayer, his writing, and his poetry. He felt that he was only beginning to understand:
Not having the linguistic and religious knowledge necessary to enter into dialogue with Islam, I feel called simply to listen. And it is God who is heard in his Word who is sent, who tells me to listen, to welcome all this strange, different reality. To the point of feeling myself responsible: may the Spirit lead it towards the full truth. And if we can make this journey together, so much the better! And making this journey we can speak and be silent.
Br. Paul (Paul Favre-Miville), fifty-seven years of age. He entered the Abbey of Tamié in 1984 and left for Algeria in 1989.Only a few days before the kidnapping, Br Paul was at Tamié and spoke to the community at length and with affection about each of the brothers in Atlas. On March 26 he flew from Lyon and arrived that same evening in Atlas. He had little time for unpacking his suitcase before he was caught up in the train of events. Ever the practical monk, his baggage had included a supply of shovels and copper beach shoots for Tibhirine, which means 'garden'.
He had been home to visit his ailing mother. Before parting with the parish priest, his friend Père Baud, referring to the risks "down there" he said: "I go back to Tibhirine, come what may." In the presence of others he concealed his fear with an air of black comedy. When his family was astonished at the number of shovels he had bought, he quipped: "It is for digging our graves better!"
The Favre-Miville family originated in Bonvaux, a Chablais village. Paul came into the world at the outbreak of the World War II. His father was the village blacksmith, and in due course Paul was to set himself up as the only plumber of Bonvaux, extending his work to the Valley of Abondance. He was the ideal plumber handyman, who could be called upon and relied upon for any job. He loved his work, and he sang all the time. He attended to all the demands on him up to the moment he finally, at the age of forty-five, entered the monastery of Tamié.
But this ordinary workman had a wealth of character and experience. He was drawn into the municipal council and served as assistant mayor and as councilor at different times and he equally fulfilled the role of fireman. He seldom, if ever, spoke of his experience in the national service as an officer in the paratroops in Algeria, but obviously he was also someone who had been smitten with love for that country.
It was not unusual to see Paul in the course of his activities frequently make spontaneous visits to the church. Père Baud, the curé of Abondance, got to know him and had him do readings at Mass, and he got the impression of a man of deep spiritual depth of character. A good mixer, he could share a drink and a joke, but he had a marked discretion. He was reticent about himself, but it came as no surprise to his three sisters and those who knew him when at last, in 1984, life for him changed completely. At forty-five, the celibate plumber decided to exchange his tools and work dungarees for the monk's habit. He was accepted at Tamié. Four years later the prior of Atlas, Fr. Christian, came to the Abbey of Tamié. His talk and his personality impressed Br. Paul. Together with Br. Christophe, he rediscovered his old attachment to Algeria and the attraction of "a more radical commitment to live at the level of people who have to struggle." Together they set out for Atlas.
His skills found full scope at Tibhirine. "He had golden hands," someone said of him. He found water for the crops, which the monks shared with the villagers in a co-operative, and set up his own unique irrigation system. Bringing back shoots of copper beach on his last trip, he never lost hope of seeing them flourish in Médéa. His hope in small seeds firmly planted in the earth reflects his own supernatural hope in the "Spirit working deep down in the hearts of men." He asked:
What will remain in a few months of the Church in Algeria, of its visibility, of its structures, of the persons of whom it is made up? Little, very little, probably. However, I believe that the Good News is sown, the grain is germinating. . . . The Spirit is at work, he works deep down in the hearts of men. Let us be willing that he be able to work in us by prayer and loving presence to all our brothers.
Return to TopThe abbey of Bellefontaine in southwest France had a considerable part in assisting the monastery of Staouëli, which preceded Our Lady of Atlas in Algeria. That tradition of active interest once again surfaced in the remarkable calling of three of the brothers in 1984 to go to the Atlas community, whose membership had been falling. Abbot Étienne Baudry was novice-master and well remembers the surprising response of three of his brothers to this need:
First, I have to explain that the three brothers felt the same appeal to go to Atlas exactly at the same time: at the end of March 1984. At the end of February, a diocesan priest had spoken in chapter about Algeria, where he wanted to go for one year. At the beginning of March (the 6th, I think) the son of the rebel saved by Fr. Célestin called him on the phone! And about the 28th of March a priest coming from Constantine, a diocese of Algeria, also spoke in chapter and explained the situation of Atlas. The next week, as novice-master, I received Br. Michel, the first, on Tuesday, Br. Célestin, the second, on Wednesday, and Fr. Bruno, the third, on Friday (I still remember it as if it were yesterday!). And all of them told me they felt the same calling—smoothly for Michel, enthusiastically for Célestin, firmly for Bruno. Of course they had not spoken about it among themselves. But their situations were different, because Br. Michel and Bruno were temporary professed (the first had entered in 1980, the second in 1981), while Br. Célestin had entered only in 1983 and was in the first year of his novitiate. So we spoke about the calling of Br. Michel and Bruno at that time, but not of Célestin. Both Michel and Bruno left for Atlas at the end of August 1984 for two years. In July 1985 Dom Emmanuel, coming from Benin, stopped at Atlas, and it was decided that Br. Michel would remain while Fr. Bruno would come back to Bellefontaine. He came back to Bellefontaine on August 12, 1985, and stayed until March 1989. At the feast of the Ascension, we began to speak of the calling of Fr. Célestin, and he left for Atlas in September 1986.
(Michel Fleury), fifty-two years of age. He entered the Abbey of Bellefontaine in 1980 and left for Algeria in 1984.Br. Michel was perhaps the most unexpected person of the three monks of Bellefontaine who quite independently came to their own decision to respond to the appeal for Algeria. Judging by his extremely self-effacing character and his simplicity, this would seem to have been a surprisingly bold initiative for Br. Michel. It was, however, consistent with his hidden dedicated life going back to his childhood. For Michel the hour had struck for him to enter fully into his vocation, "To live in the midst of the poor as a present-day Trappist." He was reaching the goal toward which his years with the Brothers of Prado had been drawing him.
Born in a modest family in Pontchâteau (Loire Atlantique), he was in his childhood enfolded by religion, with family prayers three times a day. "A Sunday without Mass was not a Sunday," his sister recalled. He always seemed to find a sense of God's presence in the land. At seventeen he tried his vocation at the monastery of La Flocellière, in the Vendée. He took up his professional life as a machine-worker in Marseilles and at twenty-seven joined the Brothers of Prado. With them he found the humble kind of life to which he aspired. The best way to support and defend the workers, according to him, was to live among them. He lived in shabby lodgings with some mates in the working quarter of La Cabucelle. Never forward, always deep, equable, Br Michel shone by his simplicity and gentleness. His sister remarked: "It was impossible to dispute with him." He had worked in factories in Lyon and Marseilles before directing his steps to Bellefontaine in 1980, where he heard the call to Algeria.
At Tibhirine he applied his usual dedication to work in the kitchen and in the house, always calm even when overworked and tired. He spoke little and observed of himself: "Out of the monastery I am like a fish out of water." His last visit to France was in October 1995. He feared delay by strikes in getting back to Atlas. He excused his haste by quoting a young Algerian he had overheard in the garden saying of the monks: "We are the birds, you are the branch."
In his own way he prepared his family for the worst eventuality. On a postcard he had written: "Through our windows there is only smoke and fire in the hills and mountains. Until when? To depart? That is a somewhat ambiguous word. If something happens to us, I wish to be in solidarity with the people here. Keep all that I tell you in your prayers. Without a doubt, the hardest to live is yet to come." At the bottom of his letters he always wrote: Inch 'Allah, 'if God wills it', the Muslim commendation to God.
In the abduction, remarkably, Br. Michel took his monastic cowl with him. This garment is worn at formal liturgy and on solemn occasions. Br. Michel's cowl was found on the road to Médéa. He died on his fifty-second birthday. His commitment to God and to the Algerian people was tenacious:
If something happens to us (I hope it doesn't), we want to experience it here, in solidarity with all the Algerian men and women who have already paid with their lives, simply in solidarity with all those unknown, innocent people. . . . It seems to me that He who is helping us to hold fast today is the One who has called us. I remain in deep wonder at this.
(Christian Lemarchand), priest, sixty-six years of age, superior of the annex house in Morocco. He entered the Abbey of Bellefontaine in 1981 and left for Algeria in 1984 (for a year), and again in 1989.Fr. Bruno's love of Algeria went back to his childhood. His early years were colonial. He was the son of an army officer, originally from St. Maixent, who was accompanied by his family to Indochina and to Algeria. One of his sisters was buried in Algeria. His own career was very different and home-bound in the center of France. In 1956, at age twenty-six, he was ordained priest. After years as professor of French he became rector of the College of St. Charles de Thouars (1965–1980). Under his direction the college acquired a solid reputation, but he refused to make the College of St. Charles a school for the privileged. He arranged free scholarships for deprived families. He was known as a gentle director, just and never severe. He had a certain reserve, which sometimes gave the mistaken impression that he was distant. It was an open secret among teachers and students that he had a yen for the monastic life. He had a yen for solitude and would make long retreats at the Benedictine monastery of St. Martin de Ligugé. It was to the Cistercian Abbey of Bellefontaine that he decided to go in 1980. The long-dormant attachment to Algeria was reawakened in 1984 when he heard an appeal for religious and priests to go there. He expressed his desire to go to Tibhirine to the novice-master, and the abbot agreed to his request. He left for Atlas in August 1984, and came back to Bellefontane in July 1985. He left again for Atlas in March 1989 and made his solemn profession there the following year. In October 1990 he was asked to go to the annex house of Fès in Morocco and some time later to lead the four monks living the Cistercian vocation in that small community.
It was somewhat by chance that he was at Tibhirine on the March 26, 1996, and was taken captive. It was his first visit in five years. He had come to participate in a vote for the office of prior. He suffered death in the mountains of Atlas with the brethren among whom he had pronounced his monastic vows six years previously.
He was a man gentle and just in his actions, composed and reflective in his outlook:
Here I am before you, O my God. . . . Here I am, rich in misery and poverty, and in indescribable weakness; here I am before You who are nothing but Love and Mercy. Before you, but solely by your grace, I am here whole and entire, with all my soul, and with all my will. (Bruno, March 21, 1990)
Fr. Célestin
(Célestin Ringeard), priest, sixty-two years of age. He entered the Abbey of Bellefontaine in 1983 and left for Algeria in 1986.As Fr. Célestin descended from the plane in Algiers, the past came to meet him. Waiting at the foot of the gangway was an Algerian whose life he had saved during the war in Algeria. In 1957, serving in the medical corps, he had cared for a wounded rebel of the ALN and prevented his execution. That terrible memory marked a lasting attachment to Algeria and now, as he returned as a Trappist monk, it was a very moving moment for Célestin as he was embraced by this man.
At sixty-two his presence here was astonishing. He was beginning a new vocation after a long priestly apostolate that would have filled and distinguished the lifetime of any priest. For twenty years, Fr. Célestin had carried on an intense city apostolate. He had resigned the comfortable parish of St. Dominique, Nantes, in order to reach out to unemployed youth, alcoholics, prostitutes, and drug addicts. His little blue 2CV car was a familiar sight in the poor quarters, and the kindness of the man, who opened the doors of his flat to the needy and would invite them to spend Christmas there, en famille, was proverbial. He had seen it all, and yet this man remained the most sensitive of persons.
He seemed destined to experience life in its most agonizing situations. At fifty, this caring priest witnessed the suicide of a young homosexual, who threw himself from a window after calling for help. From that moment his thoughts turned more and more to the monastic life until, to the amazement of acquaintances, he entered the silent contemplative life at Bellefontaine. What astonished his friends was how such a temperament could feel at home in a monastery, "considering his need to talk and his urge for relating to people." He tended to speak vividly of his vocation: "Someone had called him to the Order." In the autumn of 1986 there was an appeal for priests to go to Algeria. Célestin did not hesitate. It was for him, according to a friend, "an interior thunderbolt." He asked to go to Tibhirine and was surprised to find himself joined in this desire by Michel and Bruno of the same community.
At Our Lady of Atlas Célestin was able to enhance the liturgy of the small community as organist and choir master. The tension from the brothers of the mountain caused him, perhaps, anxiety but, like his brother monks, he embraced them in prayer and in inner peace. He would turn to others, and in Br. Luc he found a certain complementarity, a contrast of personalities—on the one hand the lifelong contemplative accustomed to tending the bodily ailments of poor people, on the other the apostolic pastor, long experienced in ministering to suffering souls. Br. Luc, the old monk, an avid reader, would share his latest interests with Célestin, who was not much inclined to reading.
The intrusion of guerrillas into the monastery at Christmas 1993 had traumatic consequences for Célestin. His heart condition became acute, and he had to undergo a multiple coronary artery bypass operation. He had only returned to Tibhirine after a long convalescence at Bellefontaine when he was abducted.
The simplicity and harmony of his life is expressed in a letter he wrote in January 1996: "In carrying out my daily duties (and this helps me each day), this morning I sang two little sentences: 'O God, you are hope on the faces of all living,' and 'Wonder of your grace! You entrust to men the secrets of the Father.'"
Return to Top Claude Rault, one of the founding members of Ribât, was asked to explain the relationship between Ribât and the community of Atlas. In a written statement he described this relationship as a vital, deep, and enduring link that can only be understood from the origin and development of the association..
The name Ribât es-Salêm means 'Link of Peace'. The group took this title when it first met in 1979 in the shadow, as it were, of the monastery. The first meeting took place significantly on the feast of the Annunciation in the spring of that year. It was the initiative of some Christian men and women, well rooted in the Church, who felt the need to form links with the spiritual tradition of Islam, not only with the written tradition but also with the living tradition.
Claude Rault was then based at Touggourt and often met with Fr. Christian. They discussed the subject more and more deeply. Out of these and other discussions came the idea of a group of like-minded Christians having the opportunity to meet. Their desires seemed to hinge on two main objectives:
1) The better understanding of Islam as a spiritual tradition capable of helping their own spiritual life and growth,
2) The encounter with Islamic men and women and their spiritual journey.
The question was where to find a favorable place in the Church willing to welcome such a group and open to this common concern. Dom John de la Croix, then prior at Atlas, had followed this development with interest. He thought it important and said he felt it should be "grafted onto the monastic trunk." When asked, the community agreed to give hospitality and support in this spirit. From then on practically all the meetings of Ribât were held at the monastery. This is how the very strong bond between them came about.
The Ribât, therefore, was not an initiative of the monastery but of some committed Christian men and women who, like Fr. Christian, were open to meeting and dialogue with Islam. Year by year, meeting by meeting, they became closer to the monks; the community always kept the Ribât's concern very much in their prayers and gave them a sense of support in their efforts in the milieu of their Islamic neighbors. The group enjoyed the kind of welcome that they felt was a sacred hospitality. Three of the monks participated fully in the meetings of the Ribât: Christian, Michel, and Christophe.
Twelve of the members were present at the monastery on that tragic night of March 26–27. They were undetected in the guest quarters of the monastery. In the strength of the legacy of their kidnapped brothers, they transferred their meeting to Algiers and completed the session. The three who had stayed that night at Atlas arrived before the meeting ended. The report given to the other members emphasized the serenity of the two monks, the fidelity of their neighbors, and the promptness of the authorities. Archbishop Teissier also came and spoke of his contacts with the administrative and military authorities.
The following meeting took the title of Ribât in Diaspora and was held at La Thoberte, May 18–19, 1996. Attendance was the highest ever, an encouraging sign that the intuitive vision of Christian would inspire others to continue. While still waiting for news of the hostages, Claude suggested it was a time "to live the Eucharist more intensely. The hostages could not celebrate it, but they are Eucharist themselves by their whole being." The meeting ended with news of the formation of a new group of Ribât in Tunis.
The strong bond that grew between Ribât and the monks continues. After the assassinations, the solidarity established with the martyred brothers seems to give added strength and conviction to the search for reconciliation and friendship, communion and peace.
Return to Top As days turned to weeks and weeks to over a month, anxiety grew for the fate of the seven monks, and prayer continued. Many articles appeared in the religious and secular press, which, in the absence of any news about the hostages, told the remarkable story of the monks of Atlas. Press versions of the story were fairly accurate, largely because of the rapidity with which Dom Armand Veilleux, the Cistercian procurator general, circulated the authentic details of the Atlas community and first-hand accounts of his visits to Tibhirine early in January 1996 and immediately after the kidnapping. There was great sympathy expressed by the media generally, as the abbots and abbesses of France had occasion to acknowledge with gratitude.
At the same time, reservations had to be expressed regarding certain comments questioning the motives of the monks. A second question debated, legitimately enough, considered the precise nature of martyrdom, dying in witness to the faith.
Following the impact on the media of Fr. Christian's Testament, opened at Pentecost, May 26th, there was a new level of understanding in reporting and comment. Fr. Christian's Testament—"words to inspire the world," as one editorial put it—has even generated a literature of its own in a continuing flow of interpretations, reflections, and inspirational articles. Fr. Christian and Fr. Christophe have left other writings, but the Testament will be the key to understanding them.
The martyrdom of the Atlas monks has profoundly touched the life of the Cistercian Order. Their influence on the monks and nuns of the Order has been considerable and leads to further reflection and writing on the inspiration and relevance of the monastic vocation and the life of religious today.
The Pope, John Paul II, frequently remembered the captives in his public addresses of prayer and urgent appeals for their release. He spoke of them during his journey to Tunisia in April, as he recalled the saints of North Africa. In his Angelus message on Sunday, March 31, he prayed fervently for their release:
In this season of the Lord's Passion, we are thinking and praying for the seven monks of the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of Atlas in Algeria, who are still in the hands of their kidnappers. I appeal to the sense of human brotherhood and ask for the immediate release of those religious who have chosen to remain as witnesses to the Absolute, among a Muslim people with whom they have built up bonds of friendship and mutual respect over the years. May they return to their monastery safe and sound, and take their place again among their Algerian friends! May God inspire all the citizens of that nation to embark without delay on the way of true peace, for which the people so long!
This prayer and those of so many others were not to be answered by the release of the monks.
Return to Top Stunned incomprehension, shocked incredulity, and great anguish of heart united men and women of every faith when the announcement was made on May 21 that these brothers of all men and women had been cruelly beheaded. In France millions shed tears as they watched, on television, Cardinal Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, extinguish the seven candles that had been burning in Notre Dame Cathedral as symbols of hope, candles that had been brought from Our Lady of Atlas and lit movingly by seven monks of Bellefontaine to begin that long vigil of prayer. In a cry from the heart the cardinal implored:
I beg all who can to continue to pray for peace in Algeria. With the killing of these lives before us, I wish to say, in the name of God, no one may kill. We must respect life and forgive. I beg that you banish hatred. . . . We have only one Creator. He wills that men live and that they love one another.
In a communiqué from the French Foreign Ministry, Hervé de Charette said that the death of the seven monks engendered "a reaction of stupefaction, of indignation, and of condemnation." He appealed to French nationals to leave Algeria.
On Pentecost Sunday, for the first time in many years, bells were tolled in every church throughout the country in honor of the brothers who had given their lives. But a light shone on that Pentecost Sunday into the terrible darkness. Into the gloom of mourning and hardening of hearts, relief and consolation came from the very source of sorrow. On that day the Testament of Fr. Christian was made known. This was a letter of "last will and testament" to dear ones, which he had composed precisely for the eventuality of violent death. He had written this message three years before in anticipation. He had thought of all those he loved and also of those who would kill him. He transfigured everything in forgiveness and love. In a few lines he not only accepted death in terms of Christian faith but went on to new depths of Christian love and transforming forgiveness.
Fr. Christian's intuition and vision burst on the scene and gave light to the consciousness of mourning millions. It was immediately grasped by ordinary people. To commentators of the press, radio, and television, Christian's words brought a luminous key to understand the destiny of the martyrs of Atlas.
The Testament, in almost poetic form, ends with the lines:
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).
Return to Top Djamel Zitouni (Abou Abdel Rahman Amin) was Supreme Emir of the GIA from 1994 to 1996. He was born late in the late 1960s and assassinated July 16, 1996.
A portrait of the executioner usually does not receive a place beside that of his victims. Fr. Christian was much more forgiving to that "friend of my final moment," than were Zitouni's own combatants. A commentator on his end remarks that "the downfall of Djmel Sitouni began with the death of the Trappist monks." Zitouni held a central position, and any picture of him raises a corner of the curtain over that whole scenario of conflicting Islamic interests, internecine strife, and ruthless power struggles that even political analysts can hardly follow. Following his slaughter of the monks, his critics abroad lacerated him for having "violated the Muslim law" and ceased to finance the journal El Ansar, which suddenly disappeared. He was killed in an ambush on July 16 together with two companions, in revenge, it seems, for the elimination of Mohammed Said, a prominent FIS (Front Islamique du Salut) leader.
Djamel Zitouni, alias Abou Abderrahmane, was the son of a chicken salesman in the southern outskirts of Algiers, an enfant terrible of the slums become an Islamic fanatic. He was jailed in 1985 for robbery. He disappeared in 1992. After terrorist training in Iran and in camps of the Hezbollah in Libya, he returned as head of a death squad (Katib el-Mout). His fierce hatred of France and savage violence paved his rise to leadership. He was close to Cherif Gousmi, and when Gousmi was killed by the military in 1994, probably betrayed by a rival, Zitouni was designated Supreme Emir of the GIA (Groupe Islamiste Armé) movement. To secure his position he had Mohammed Said, his collaborator from the FIS, assassinated. In doing so, he probably planted the seed of his own destruction.
As No. 1 of the GIA Zitouni had nine chiefs commanding nearly 10,000 men, 2000 in the West of the country, 4000 in the center, and 3000 in the East. He had terrorist units in Europe and used the clandestine, London-based journal El Ansar, which folded with his fall from favor. His most notorious operation was the failed hijacking of the Air France Airbus on Christmas Eve 1994. His four commandos were killed. Four White Fathers were murdered in Algeria in direct revenge. Zitouni was not exceptional in his savagery, as the atrocities continuing after his death demonstrate, including the bomb explosion that killed Mgr. Claverie, Bishop of Oran, and his driver on August 1.
A description of the leader of the airbus hijacking squad, Abdul Abdullah Yahia, reads like a mirror image of Djamel Zitouni. Yahia and his companions were also young men, and some seemed better educated and more polished than Zitouni, but all were equally ruthless. They are almost replicas of each other in the sameness that seems to stamp the obsessive, the absolutist, the fanatic. Complete lack of human feeling and absence of rationality are the most frightening aspects of the terrorist.
The existence of such contrasting lives in close proximity—peaceful, loving monks and terrorists filled with hatred and violence—created a situation that was well described by Bishop Henri Pierre Claverie of Oran. He writes:
The Church accomplishes its calling and its mission when it is present where there is a tearing apart of humanity, that very crucifixion of the flesh. Jesus himself died suspended between heaven and earth, as it were with arms outstretched so as to gather together the children of God, scattered as they were by sin, isolated indeed and set up one against the other, indeed against God himself. Jesus placed himself at the epicenter of this tragic breakdown of sin. For in Algeria we are on the very seismic fault-lines that mark the world: Islam-the East, North-South, rich-poor. This is the right place for us to be, for it is here that the Light of the Resurrection can shine forth.
Bishop Claverie, a native Algerian, was perhaps Fr. Christian's ideal in his complete love of his country and its people, in his intuitiveness, and in the gift of expression that he as a Dominican knew how to use to the full in his writing and pastoral work. In his homily to a Scout rally at Fanjeaux, France, shortly before he was killed, he said, "I believe that not being close enough to the cross of its Lord is fatal to the Church."
This glimpse of the evil and violence represented by Zitouni only suggests the cauldron of contention and conflict into which the seven monks of Atlas were plunged. The mystery remains as to who actually did the kidnapping. The kidnappers had accents from the East. Why did Zitouni maintain silence for thirty days before declaring himself? Many questions remain shrouded in secrecy. According to some sources, the abduction of the monks caused dissension. Some of his followers wanted to release them, but Zitouni refused to lose face, since he had issued Communiqué No. 43 declaring that it was lawful to kill them.
The French authorities also had the measure of this fanaticism in taking responsibility for refusing to negotiate. Whatever the political arguments, they were supported in this decision by the relatives. Rightly or wrongly, the families refused to have their distress continually recorded on television.
Fr. Christian may never have met anyone as pathologically cruel and calculating as Zitouni, but when he wrote to "the friend of my final moment," he was aware of the atrocities that reflected Zitouni's methods. His Testament therefore goes even to this extent of love and forgiveness.
Return to TopIn the June 27, 1996, London Universe, editor Joe Kelly wrote:
Words to Inspire the World . . . . His words are an exceptional testament in exceptional circumstances, but we might all do well to follow their message, wherever and whatever we are. In a faith that so passionately supports the sanctity of life, many of us quietly struggle to understand the glory of martyrdom, what the Church calls "the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith." Countless volumes have been devoted to the subject, but few words will have been so eloquent, or so readily understood, as Fr. de Chergé's honest paragraphs. His letter was a gesture of love to his family, penned undoubtedly to comfort them in an inevitable time of great distress and spiritual confusion; but within days of his death it has already winged its way around the world. The murder of missionaries might well be thought of as a relic of colonial history, but the fact is that the Church is now more than ever on the front-line of conflict. Ask any missionary and they will tell you that that is where the Church has to be, whatever the consequences; but if anyone asks how death can be stared in the face with such humility, just refer them to "Fr. Christian's letter."
In response to this editorial column, Kelly received hundreds of letters and phone calls from readers saying how moved and inspired they had been by Fr. Christian's Testament.
Not everyone saw it in this light. The London Tablet said that the monks had been killed because they were French, not because they were Catholic. Dom John Moakler, abbot of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, took issue with the editor, pointing out that the GIA's own words stated "it was because they were Christian religious." In France a letter expressing an Algerian attitude to the question became the subject of debate in the Le Nouvel Observateur. It said: "If Br. Christian had had more charity than heroism, he would have known it was better to avoid the menaces of assassination than by accepting assassination to plunge us into implacable hatred." Bishop H. Simon of Clermont referred to this reasoning as "the fallacy of the argument of the highest charity," pointing out the absurdity. Applied to France it would mean that all Muslims should leave the country in order not to provoke the hatred of other citizens.
The matter will be debated. It is worth noting that two promoters of causes for canonization have been closely touched by the deaths of the monks of Atlas. Abbé Joseph Chone, Promoter of the Causes of Saints, Paris, was a fellow seminarian with Fr. Christian. Dom Armand Veilleux, OCSO, holds this office for Cistercian causes. The canonical question can become technical and abstract.
Not so the moving "Tribute From an Arab Brother" written by Fr. Louis Wehbé of Latroun Abbey in Israel. In this personal response there is deep perception and understanding of how the giving of their lives by these monks might be considered martyrdom in the strict sense used in the canonical process:
Are you and your brothers martyrs? I have not the least doubt about it. It is a martyrdom that conforms most closely to that of Christ; it is a very pure form of martyrdom that distinguishes itself from the attitude attributed to the early fathers who, placing themselves on the side of the pure, appeared to be arrogant and disdainful of their judges. Neither you nor your brothers wished for martyrdom, because you did not wish that the Algerians and Muslims, whom you loved so dearly, should pay the price of the grace of your martyrdom by offending God and by bringing on themselves the condemnation of murderers. You and your brothers had long ago given your lives. In July, 1994, you wrote to a little girl: "If something happens to us, believe that the love of God for this people allowed this to happen, and what would have been taken away thus, even violently, was given." For me it is beyond doubt that you and your brothers died for Christ and the Christian faith. You did not look for death or want to be heroes. You wanted to remain true to your gift of self and to your witness, "to our religious vocation including the possibility of 'martyrdom'" (Letter of July 9, 1995). Your attitude could not be clearer or allow for any confusion. On December 28, 1993, you yourself, Christian, wrote to Sayah Attian, Emir of the GIA (Armed Islamic Group): "Our life as monks (ruhbân) binds us to God's will for us, which is a life of prayer and simplicity, manual labor, hospitality and sharing with all, especially the poorest. These reasons for living are a free choice for each one of us. They engage us until death. I do not believe that it would be the will of God that you should be the instrument of that death." What did the GIA accuse you of to conclude that you deserved death? The Emir (Abou Abdel Rahman Amin), the one who claimed responsibility for your abduction, accused you of the following in his Communiqué No. 43, dated April 18, 1996: the monks have "never stopped inviting Muslims to become Christian, displaying their slogans and symbols and solemnly celebrating their feasts." He declares that "the monks who live amongst the faithful can legitimately be killed"; "they live amongst the people and lead them away from the divine path by inciting them to embrace Christianity." "It is also lawful to inflict upon them what was inflicted upon the infidels of old when they are war prisoners: murder, slavery, or exchanging them for Muslim prisoners." It is, therefore, clear that the GIA and its leader, Abou Abdel Rahmân Amîn, killed you in the name of Islam and because of your Christian religion. The majority of the Muslim world will certainly condemn these murders and will not recognize itself in the narrow Islam of the GIA. It is evident that you died because you were Christians and monks. In accordance with their principles, the GIA, in its Communiqué No. 44, dated May 21, 1996, coldly justified the assassinations committed, stating: They [the French] "have declared that they would not enter into dialogue or negotiate with the Armed Islamic Group [GIA]. They interrupted what they had started, and we have cut the throats of seven monks, faithful to our commitment. Praised be God. And this was carried out this morning." Christ foretold this: "And indeed the hour is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is doing a holy duty for God" (Jn 16:2).
In his "Faithful Reading of the Events," Dom Bernardo focused on what was clear. He wrote:
Let not diplomacy, politics or a non-transcendental view of these events come to deprive us of the voice of our martyrs and silence the clamor of their cry of love and of faith. From the martyrdom of spiritual combat to the martyrdom of blood poured out, it is the same cry that calls to forgiveness and love of one's enemies. Life is stronger than death: love has the last word!
The acts of the martyrs were communicated with great rapidity among early Christians. The remarkable speed of communication in the case of the Atlas martyrs is demonstrating some of the same response regardless of precise labels of martyrdom. There is little sign of slowing in the flood of publications. The first book appeared within a month, Sept Vies Pour Dieu et l'Algérie. This work was the remarkable achievement of Bruno Chenu, who had effectively covered the situation of the monks of Atlas for La Croix. With help from the monasteries of Bellefontaine and Tamié, he assembled the most recent texts from Atlas tracing its spiritual journey. Before the end of October a second and quite different kind of book was published. Les Martyrs de Tibhirine by Mireille Duteil is a triumph of research and analysis of events and affairs. The author is an expert on Arab affairs, but the history, lives, and deaths of the monks are shown in the fullest light. It is an invaluable record animated by an obvious esteem for the martyrs of Tibhirine.
Return to Top On June 2, 1996, Vatican Radio broadcast an improved English translation of Fr. Christian's Testament. The original French text was first published by La Croix on May 28, 1996. From that first reproduction in La Croix, based on the manuscript, one can trace divergent translations into English. There are two very different versions, which are significant for the interpretation of Fr. Christian's words.
The first English translation was issued by the secretariat of the Order, Rome, May 30, 1996.
A second translation appeared in the Boston Pilot and The Universe (possibly syndicated to other papers). This version was obviously based on the French text in La Croix on May 28, which made the first line, "Quand un A-DIEU s'envisagé," into a large headline so that it did not appear to be part of the text and was thus omitted in the English.
The French did, however, keep the word "islamisme," which in the first English translation was mistakenly transcribed as "idealism." It also kept the invocation, In sha'Allah, 'If God wills', which was missing in the English.
The most difficult phrase to translate, even for French speakers, was "en-visagé de toi." The French original reads: "Oui, pour toi aussi je le veux ce MERCI, et cet 'A-DIEU' en-visagé de toi."
The first version of the English had: "Yes, for you, too, I say this THANK YOU and this A-DIEU–to commend you to the God in whose face I see yours." The syndicated press version had: "Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, and this 'adieu' which is of your planning." Finally, the authorized version reads: "Yes, I also say this THANK YOU and this 'ADIEU' to you, in whom I see the face of God."
Other English versions appeared, one on the Internet, another in the Religious Life Review (Dublin). In England the BBC radio asked to obtain the exclusive transmission rights of the improved translation, which had been read on Vatican Radio and published in the Tablet (London).
It was felt that an authorized version should be copyrighted by the Order. After consultation between several English- and French-speaking communities, an acceptable English translation was approved. This version has been copyrighted in the interest of the integrity of the text, not to restrict its distribution. It is reproduced below in the Appendix.
Return to Top "In praise of a hyphen" is the title of an editorial by Fr. Ciarán O'Sabhaois. He wrote: "One of the most extraordinary things in the Testament is his insertion of a hyphen into the word 'Adieu' extending its meaning from 'Good-bye' to the full richness of its literal 'To God'."
This Testament of Fr. Christian was born out of the peril from assassins over a prolonged period. Two dates are appended to the letter: December 1, 1993, and January 1, 1994. They correspond to two stages of the text. The first corresponds to the apprehension that followed the GIA's ultimatum of "death to all foreigners." The second expresses a reaction to and horror at the indifference of the French press to the massacre of twelve Croatian workers near the monastery. ("I would like them to be able to associate this death with the many other deaths which were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity").
The opening words "When an A-Dieu is envisaged" create, with the closing "A-Dieu—to commend you to the God whose face I see in yours," a perspective on the whole experience of a life already given to God (à Dieu). In a simple gaze towards the face of God, Fr. Christian binds together the several loves of his life. Death itself and the seeming enemy are seen in the face of God.
As he bids his A-Dieu to his loved ones, he also enfolds his killers in deep understanding of the relationship between all human beings "envisaged" before God.
His opening A-Dieu means both to God and goodbye. In facing death the words A-Dieu have their full meaning in a life committed from the beginning in love ("Remember, my life was given to God and to the country"), a life continuing in fidelity to the children of Islam seen "in the gaze of the Father as he sees them," and concluding with his final thank you and A-Dieu commending his killer to God.
The concluding "A-Dieu en-visagé de toi" is almost impossible to translate —the love of enemies to this extent is so unusual. "God is taking his definitive face at the end of my life, and now that I am in front of him, not only can I see how he looks at my Muslim Brothers, but His face has your face, my Brother, who murdered me!"
Only a few months previously, Fr. Christian spoke to the General Chapter of 1993 and expressed the same thought about the face of God. He said, "We see that the Muslim tradition also knows how to pass on to others the desire to see God, as the Koran says, 'All will pass away but for God's face'."
In the end the face of God! The Islamic tradition seeking the face of God is one of "the true strands of the Gospel" that Christian found to be a positive challenge even in his monastic vocation. At Tibhirine, bell and muezzin sounded out together from the same enclosure, bidding all to pray. Many of the values of Islam are associated with monks: ritual prayer, prayer of the heart, fasting, vigils, a sense of the praise of God and of God's forgiveness, a naked faith in the glory of the wholly Other and in the communion of saints. Fr. Christian listed all these and went further than others in integrating Muslim spiritual experience while remaining deeply and totally Christian. In this knowledge and friendship ("in the certain knowledge of what I have received from it"), it pained him to see that religion misinterpreted and misapplied by its supposed followers: "I know also the caricature of Islam which a certain kind of islamism encourages." Sadly he perceived that fanaticism ("a certain kind of islamism") "encourages" the distortion ("caricature") of true Islam, not that Islam encourages fanaticism.
Fr. Christian's words are an exceptional testament in exceptional circumstances. Even more significant is the fact that his experience is that of a community and not only of one person—an experience that extended to close union with the Muslim community around the monastery.
The martyrdom of seven monks will cause a lull in that daily contact, but their sacrifice may inspire even greater understanding in the Muslim world and lead to spiritual growth between Islam and Christians. In the words of Pope John Paul:
Today many consecrated persons are looking for and finding—in such contacts—the traces of God's presence, a presence guiding all humanity toward the discernment of the signs of His will. Such a search proves advantageous for consecrated persons themselves: the values discovered can in fact prompt them to deepen their own understanding of the Christian practice of contemplation, community sharing, hospitality, respect for persons.
Return to Top On Friday, May 30, Mgr. Henri Teissier, Archbishop of Algiers, learned of the death of Cardinal Léon-Étienne Duval, and a few minutes later of the discovery of the mutilated remains of the seven monks of Atlas. This news was awaiting Dom Bernardo Olivera, abbot general, and Dom Armand Veilleux, procurator general, who were flying from Rome not knowing what to expect or whether or not there would be any remains of their brothers at the requiem Mass. Archbishop Teissier was able to inform them about the remains and suggest that the funeral Mass could be celebrated for both the monks and their life-long champion in the basilica of Our Lady of Africa, his cathedral.
Cardinal Duval had helped the community of Atlas to survive many crises and had grown very close to them and to the monks of Tamié in his native Savoy. He had taken the Cistercians to heart. He confided to his niece, a few days before he died, "The death of the monks has crucified me." He was the great figure of the Church in Algeria. Three weeks previously, he had refused, out of fidelity to the country he loved, to return to France for an operation. He was ninety-two. He had once written, "When I came to Algeria, it was with the intention of remaining here until I died."
The question of the place of burial for the monks was discussed. The abbot of Bellefontaine, who was in touch with the relatives, phoned to say that the families agreed with the monastic family in wanting them to rest at Our Lady of Atlas. Some hesitation was expressed because of the security risks, but the authorities respected these wishes.
Of more immediate concern to Dom Benardo were the difficulties about seeing the mortal remains and identifying the monks. The presumed obstacles were again quickly removed by sympathetic higher authorities. On Friday, May 31, the Cistercians were taken to the morgue of the military hospital for this privileged but painful last fraternal service. Fr. Amadeus remained outside praying while only Dom Bernardo and Dom Armand were shown the coffins. The few words Dom Bernardo could permit himself afterwards were, "In the face of what we saw next, we couldn't help thinking of the Precursor of Jesus, Saint John the Baptist." It was all over in twenty minutes.
Solemn requiem Mass was celebrated in the great shrine of Our Lady of Africa on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, and accompanying Masses were celebrated in cathedrals, monasteries, and churches around the world. Cardinal Arinze was there to represent the Holy Father. The eight coffins were in the sanctuary; on each had been placed a large wreath of flowers and a good-sized photo. In the large and palpably grieving gathering of dignitaries of Church and State, of ordinary people of all faiths, Dom Bernardo spoke movingly but simply, offering "the testimony of one monk to his brother monks":
The hidden voice of the monks has remained silently in the cloister of Our Lady of Atlas for more than fifty years. This same voice was changed during the course of the last two months into a cry of love which has resounded in the heart of millions of men and women believers and men and women of good will. Our seven brothers of Tibhirine, Christian, Luc, Christophe, Paul, Michel, Bruno, and Célestin are today transformed into spokesmen for so many stifled voices and unknown persons who have given life for a more humane world. Our seven monks lend their voice to me, too, today. . . The witness of the monks, like that of every believing Christian, can only be understood as a prolongation of the witness of Christ himself.. Our brother monks are a ripe fruit of this Church which is living its Pasch in Algeria. Our brother monks are also a ripe fruit of this people of Algeria which received and esteemed their life during so many years of presence and communion.
The abbot general ended with moving words of gratitude to the Algerian people for the respect and love with which they had surrounded the monks. After the Mass there were emotional expressions of that same love, and sympathy, as people approached, tears in their eyes, to greet the monks who had been spared and their brothers from Rome. One security guard of the military hospital, a Muslim, shook the hand of Dom Bernardo very hard, saying, "The monks are our brothers too." Many asked for forgiveness for what had happened.
The earthly passage of Christian, Luc, Christophe, Paul, Michel, Bruno, and Célestin ended in the extreme isolation, simplicity, and poverty of their burial at the now deserted monastery of Our Lady of Atlas. The scene of that last lament, so pitiful and remote, cannot fail to be seen against the background of the enduring grandeur of the Atlas mountains and in the light of more eternal hills.
The events have had an unusual chronicler in the person of Dom Bernardo Olivera, OCSO. His journal, extending to three long letters, is not merely personal. He records events made sacred by the memory of the martyrs. He writes with the brothers and sisters of the Order in mind. It is remarkable to have this first-hand account of something of which the Order cannot yet see the consequences. The burial, that strange but silent ending to a cruel and equally silent drama, is best described from Dom Bernardo's chronicle.
The burial took place on Tuesday, June 4, 1996, at Our Lady of Atlas. In the words of Dom Bernardo:
A day humid and gray: all nature seemed to be weeping for sorrow. A great display of police and military when we got to Médéa and still more at the monastery. . . . The coffins were carried by about thirty military cadets, all with great respect and dignity. Behind the closed doors and in the most complete intimacy, I preside over an extremely simple liturgy. . . . Again the cadets entered to take the mortal remains and carry them to the community cemetery. The seven graves had been prepared. . . . I said the last prayer and they began to lower the coffins into the graves. It was already 13:15. Monsignor cast the first shovelful of earth into the grave of Michel and I into that of Christophe: a group of neighbors continued the task. . . . At that very moment the sun appeared. The coffins disappeared into the earth and we disappeared into the arms, the kisses, and the condolences of innumerable neighbors of the monastery, who at the same time thanked us for having buried the monks here. At 13:45 it was all over. . . . I made a rapid visit round the monastery. With the idea of sending it to Madame Lebreton, I took a Christ in olive wood which hung on the wall of the library.
In my heart a single phrase was resounding: "We will not leave our dead alone, we shall come back!"
Return to Top Appendix I. 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 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 naive, or idealistic:
"Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!"
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-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.
Christian.
Return to Top Appendix II. Message of John Paul II, Mass for the Martyrs of Atlas Dearest Brothers and Sisters,
With a keen sense of participation, I unite with you as you gather around the altar to celebrate, in the sacrifice of Christ, the memory of your seven confreres of the monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, at Tibhirine, in Algeria, who were killed in a barbaric manner last May. With this message I wish to express my spiritual nearness to you and my solidarity, along with a special remembrance in my prayers. "If the grain of wheat falling to the ground does not die, it remains alone; if instead it dies, it produces much fruit. He who loves his life will lose it, while he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If someone wishes to serve me let him follow me, and where I am there also will my servant be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him" (Jn 12:24-6).
How pertinent are these words of the Gospel! How appropriate they sound, as we think of your seven confreres and of your present Capitular meetings, which are taking place in the light of their witness! The Lord alone can comfort his children in such dramatic trials. Faith in Christ, crucified and risen, tears away the veil of suffering and makes us understand the mysterious fecundity of the death of believers, whose life is not taken away but transformed. I am certain that the sacrifice of the monks of Tibhirine has not failed to provide special inspiration for your Capitular labors, enabling each of you to meet with full openness of Spirit the two great challenges which face you: that of a renewed fidelity to the radical following of Christ, and that of communion within the great Cistercian family. Be certain of this: the blood of martyrs is in the Church a force for renewal and of unity.
"At the end of the second millennium, the Church has become once again a Church of martyrs" (Tertio millennio adveniente, no. 37). The witness of the Trappists of Our Lady of Atlas takes its place alongside that of the Bishop of Oran, His Excellency Pierre Lucien Claverie, and of not a few other sons and daughters on the African continent who, during this period, have given their lives for the Lord and for their brothers and sisters, beginning with those who persecuted and killed them. Their witness is the victory of the Cross, the victory of the merciful love of God, who saves the world. The Testament that Dom Christian de Chergé left behind offered to all the key for understanding the tragic occurrence in which he and his confreres were involved, the final meaning of which is the gift of life in Christ. "My life," he wrote, "was given to God and to this country."
Venerable brothers and sisters, you are the custodians of this memory, guardians in prayer, in common discernment, and in the concrete directives which you decide upon, so that the memory of this event may be fruitful in the future for Trappists and for the whole Church. In this rich promise of hope, we invoke the abundance of the gifts of the Holy Spirit on each of you and on the works of your respective Chapters, and we impart to you with all our heart the Apostolic Benediction.
From the A. Gemelli Hospital, October 10, 1996
John Paul II
Return to Top Appendix III. Homily for the Solemnity of All Saints, November 1, 1996 "Who are these people dressed in white robes, and where have they come from? These are the people who have been through the great trial; they have washed their robes white again in the blood of the Lamb" (Rv 7:13–4).
Hearing these words, we cannot, at least I cannot, help making a connection with what happened to our brothers of Atlas in Algeria last spring, when we were celebrating Easter and Paschal time—the kidnapping and tragic death of our brothers.
Along with this gift of their life, they have left us, under the pen of Fr. Christian, a Testament to help us understand and read as correctly as we can today what God was in the process of accomplishing in them and through them. That is why, once again, I have been leaning over Fr. Christian's Testament to listen to him together with you, and to let him join us.
But at the moment of doing so, I wonder if this is truly the time and place to do it. In the end I decided yes, that this context is even the most appropriate occasion to take another look and to understand, to let him join us and question us.
What we are dealing with is not the narrative of a story at the level of events that succeed each other and brush against each other as on a television screen. It is a thrust into the depths that touches the one central aspect of the mystery of Christ in his passing from death to life. The brothers were summoned and interrogated at Christmas time, but it was during Easter time that they began to follow the Lamb in earnest.
Appended to Fr. Christian's Testament, written in the shifting of the Old Testament being fulfilled by the sacrifice of the New Testament, are two dates—December 1, 1993, and January 1, 1994. It seems to me that these dates correspond to two stages of the text. The first is when Fr. Christian notes, as if in passing, his reaction to the GIA's ultimatum, which warned foreigners that from then on they would be victims of violence. "If it should happen one day," wrote Fr. Christian, "and it could be today—that I become a victim. . . ." Then, for us, his community (his Cistercian family), his Church (all of us), and his relatives (represented here), he formulated four wishes that he would like us to take into account: to remember, to accept, to pray for him, and to expand our prayer.
To remember—that is what we are now doing in the light and power of the memorial of the Lord. To remember that his life and the lives of all seven were "given to God and to this country."
A life given is the greatest witness. By it we come to a deep unity with him who gave his life for us, with him in whom alone we in our turn are able to give our life for our brothers and sisters.
Christian did not know that the sacrifice would come during Easter time. He was not thinking so, even at the moment when he or they were rudely awakened and kidnapped. But he knew well that when "that" happened, it would be "paschal" by its very nature. And so it happened that the course of events led to the meeting of the symbol and the sacrament.
"To accept that the Sole Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure." A heart-rending phrase for those nearest who have to experience it, yet also a phrase as discreet as possible, and one that tries to express what only the language of a love that is stronger than death can make comprehensible. At our celebration at the General Chapter in Rome this past October 12, 1996, when Archbishop Teissier got to this point in his homily, he had to stop because he was overcome by emotion like Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. Here acceptance becomes the doorway into communion with what they experienced. This communion can be sealed only in the blood of the Lamb, in the strength of a greater love that is victorious over evil and sin, because the only Son of the Lord of all life passed that way first and because he opened a breach that no one can close.
"I ask them to pray for me," recalling that "my life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value." This word is a scandal for some. "So many people," they say, "have prayed for them . . . but they are dead." But certainly Fr. Jean-Pierre, one of the brothers who escaped, saw it differently. On the morning of the kidnapping he said, "We must pray for them, they are on a mission," and when their deaths were announced, he concluded, "They have accomplished their mission!"
To expand their prayer: "to link this death with the many other deaths which were just as violent, but forgotten through indifference and anonymity." Already "the good thief" who was going to ask and offer forgiveness could not help enlarging his "me" when he said, "Remember me in your kingdom! My life has no more value than any other, nor any less." From that moment his life was linked by an indissoluble bond to so many others: "My life was given to God and to this country," to this country because first to God.
"An accomplice in the evil." Now, following in some way these four wishes, comes the act of contrition that rises to his lips and flows from his pen: I know "that I am an accomplice in the evil," and that makes me "beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings." He has perfect contrition even on the level of the text, for to the forgiveness asked he adds, like a crown, his forgiveness given to the one who "would strike me blindly," "who would strike me down."
Everything is said already in this text, which, it seems to me, dates from the initial shock on December 1 and was never corrected or touched up but was begun all over again on a deeper level on January 1. [The second stage was the result] of a sharp inner debate that led to the rediscovery or at least the revelation of a deep vocation ending in the transfiguration of his already-given forgiveness.
The "debate" arose from scenes of atrocity and was very personal; it arose from the assassination of the Croatians on December 14 and from the Christmas Eve visit of Sayah Attiya with its consequences for the community up to January 1 [1994]. At that point Christian was struggling. He seemed to cry out, "I could not desire such a death," only to add immediately, with the calmness typical of his temperament, "It seems important to me to state this." He continued pondering on "the grace of martyrdom," apparently only to refuse it. He calls this martyrdom "murder" and refuses any joy from it. He rejects with all his power the false interpretation that would identify the true Islam with the caricature of Islamic extremism, which he obviously cannot accept.
There is a message here for us and for our society, a message that I cannot develop but that we must not forget as Christians of France or elsewhere, and that must not be forgotten by the Muslims of Algeria or elsewhere.
The thrust of the debate made him delve into his own special vocation both as to its origin—impossible to describe here—and its Trinitarian conclusion, expressed in the now well-known phrase describing the object of his "avid curiosity."
The whole mystery of All Saints is gathered together there. I cannot help quoting it: "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, the fruit of His Passion, and filled with the Gift of the Spirit."
At that time it is the mystery of joy that takes over, the joy that he had just refused when confronted in his inner debate by so many atrocities, for "if we remain silent, the very stones of the wadi will howl." On the other side of anger, a holy and necessary anger, joy may be welcomed, the joy of the Spirit who creates communion, who restores the likeness while "playfully delighting in the differences." It is the joy of a vocation found, a life given up, "totally mine, totally theirs" (solidarity), a life given up because God seems to have willed it "for the sake of that JOY in everything and in spite of everything."
Let it be enough now to recall the climax of his Testament, which leaves each of us in a kind of sacred awe when assassination is envisaged as "an A-Dieu" and the assassin becomes "the friend of my final moment," in the joy of finding "each other, happy good thieves, in Paradise, if it pleases God, the Father of us both."
Dom M. Étienne Baudry, OCSO
Abbot of Bellefontaine, Bégrolles en Mauges
Return to Top Appendix IV. Message to our Christian Friends We have learned with dismay of the abduction of seven Trappist monks in Algeria, near Médéa. This unworthy, inhuman act cannot be claimed in the name of Islam or in the name of God. We, young Muslims, wish to express to you our brotherhood in these so difficult moments. We firmly condemn the abduction of these men who make a work of solidarity and brotherhood in great humility. Know, dear friends, that we are by your side.
For several decades the Islamic-Christian dialogue has been developing, and this event will not destroy the profound desire to respect each other's differences, to listen to each other's points of divergence, and to meditate on the point on which we converge; over and above tolerance, it is divine love and coming closer to God that guide our progress in order to tie and retie our bonds as men of faith.
You are living now at the end of Lent, which concludes with the meal shared by Jesus with the apostles. We pray to the Lord to accept our prayers that his peace may reign in the world of humankind. Like the month of Ramadan, Lent symbolizes another important moment for reflection in the world. Let us share this striving to bring ourselves closer to God, to follow the path of the prophets, and to speak of God's messengers to coming generations for a better future. O that today we might give witness to this ideal by our faith. With kind regards.
The Young Muslims' Collective of France
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The Volume II of The Atlas Martyrs,
A HERITAGE TOO BIG FOR US, is available at Nunraw Abbey.
Volume I is on Online.
Of Volume II, only section one, 1.The Martyrdom of Charity by Dom Christian, is included here Online.
The Atlas Martyrs - Volume II
Dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of Citeaux, on the nono-centenary of the Cistercian Order Feast of the Assumption 1998 |
| Edited by Donald McGlynn OCSO |
 | "Mary's Compassion" - by Christian de Chergé |
| Foreword by the Editor |
| 1.The Martyrdom of Charity |
| 2. Tibhirine Chronicle |
| 3. Last Chronicle from Tibhirine |
| 4. Lenten Conferences by Fr. Christian |
| 5. Poems of Christophe Lebreton |
| 6. An En-Visaged Good-By-E |
| 7. "Seven Sleepers of Ephesus" by Claude Rault WF |
| 8. "Monks who teach us" by Bernard Rérolle SM |
| 9. "Innocence and Forgiveness" - J-P Schumacher OCSO |
| 10. First Anniversary Commemoration - Abbot General |
| 11. "Paradox of Cross" - Mother General, Tyburn |
| 12. Letter from Ireland |
| 13. Letter from Algiers (1) |
| 14. Tibhirine - When shall we return? - Abbot of Aiguebelle |
| 15. Letter from Algiers (2) |
| 16. Reawakened Memories - Peter Gilmore |
| 17. Emmanuel Levinas by David Hodges OCSO |
| 18. Louis Massignon by Donald McGlynn OCSO |
| 19. Internet Resources on the Atlas Martyrs |
| 20. "Atlas of the World" by WW |
| 21. Epilogue: "Another Group of Seven Martyrs" |
"The sacrifice of the Trappists of Tibhirine is still present in our hearts. These martyrs of God's love for all, were peacemakers by the gift of their lives. They invite Christ's disciples to keep their gaze fixed on God and to live love until the end, mindful above all that there is no following of Christ without renunciation. Keep their memory as a precious spiritual possession for the Cistercian family and for the whole Church!"
(From the Vatican, 6 March 1998. Joannes Paulus II).
"A Heritage Too For Us - Atlas Martyrs"
Volume II
© Nunraw: Compilation
Nunraw Abbey, Garvald, Haddington, Scotland EH41 4LW
Nunraw Abbey | |
Mary's Compassion - A Poem Christian de Chergé OCSO
Holy Saturday 1977. To Sister N. and all those whose heart seems made to bleed.
You will always be torn apart, for the sword is sharp
piercing your son's side, your mother's soul.
As long as there is pain to share
you will be its companion in the night
amid the doubts, the waiting, the tears.
Dawn will come for others but not for you
as long as there is still a comatose child,
grieving parents or a bedside
where time stands still with love.
You are the eternal woman
eyes worn out by weeping
exposed to every passion
yet giving all compassion.
For you it rains even on the highway of the sun
for you are the blind walker on the roadside
splattered by mud from the passing cars.
You must cross the road quickly so as not
to be run over by life's reckless drivers.
All you can see is the dying man
lying on the other side of the highway
winding down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
If they ask you what you are doing that for,
you take your child who died on the cross,
open your arms like a living tomb
and press him against your bosom,
where he can rest, awake, and live again
in the heart of your womb.
For the hour of labour has arrived
Oh Mother of Sorrow!
You must give birth anew since you have said Yes,
you who never cease to bring into the Father's world
the immense, suffering body of his first-born Son.
You have said Yes and that is your joy
leaping up within you
poured over the world as your Magnificat.
But now is the hour of darkness.
You must still taste ingratitude, hate, solitude,
and your children must pass through this too
so that your first Yes, the mother of all words,
which remains while the earth passes away,
can be consummated.
In your case the Beatitudes are not fulfilled
before the end of the ages
for this is what has been decreed:
you are to carry all generations within you
from Nazareth to Golgotha
until the day of eternal birth when
all shall rise and shall proclaim you BLESSED!
Trs. Augustine Roberts, OCSO
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Foreword by the Editor
The sacrifice of the Trappists of Tibhirine is still present in our hearts. … Keep their memory as a precious spiritual possession for the Cistercian family and for the whole Church! (John Paul II, 6 March 1998).
These words of the Holy Father are reflected in the many memories we have of the Atlas martyrs. Interest in them continues to grow
The outpouring of publications in France has not stopped. Listed below are seven major contributions. It may be true that, as Fr. Amèdée has remarked, too much has been written. "It is sufficient to read Fr. Christian's Testament and then to be silent!". But this is far from being the case in English speaking countries. We do need English translations of some introductory material about the lives and writings. Dom Christian wrote of others who were assassinated, "If we are silent the very stones will cry out". We are pleased to note that translations of the writings from Atlas are being prepared. Meanwhile this collection may serve to chart the course of the inspiration arising from these monks and their approach to non-Christian Religions.
The following collection is not easily classified. The various contributions are arranged in near chronological order. They form a chronicle of appreciation of these men. Like a pebble in a still pool they spread out in ever widening circles of inspiration at the wider spiritual meaning of these lives given to God.
People have been touched by the events in every walk of life: from the Algerian laywoman who listened to conferences of Dom Christian to the monk from the French Alps who helped to renew the liturgy; from the Catholic housewife in Ireland to the Mother General from New Zealand; from the missionary theologian in Switzerland to the retired worker in Scotland.
These are examples of how the story has moved and inspired individuals. Professional Religious have been confirmed in their vocation and challenged in new ways. There is a unique impulse, springing from the martyrs' very special relationship to Islam, which is alive and active. This goes beyond the witness which the monks of Tibhirine share with other 'good and faithful servants' who died heroically for their faith,
"What struck me in [Christian] at this time was, above all, his determination to root himself in the monastic life without losing sight of this vocational inclination towards Islam and the Moslem world. And it was undoubtedly because he was in tune with monasticism at the deepest level that he was able, gradually, to get the whole community to respond in harmony to this new note". (Claude Rault, § 7).
The community of Atlas had a deep sense of monastic vocation. They were drawn by their actual dramatic experience to a new openness to Islam. The documents Lumen Gentium and Nostra Aetate of the Second Vatican Council developed this new spirit of communion with non-Christian Religions. Closer study of Dom Christian's writings reveal the 'man of dialogue'. The community was a living example of good relations with members of the Islamic faith. The Notes at the end, (§18 §19), point to the bearing of other important thinkers in the area of inter-faith dialogue. Hope for the coming together of peoples of two great Faiths in the future is strengthened by the deeper understanding of the 'message' of the Atlas martyrs.
Our sincere thanks to the many persons who have assisted in the gathering, translation and production of this collection. May their association with the 'martyrs of charity' in this way bring blessings on their lives.
Donald McGlynn OCSO
Sancta Maria Abbey
Nunraw
Assumption 1998
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1. The "Martyrdom"of charity Christian de Chergé
Maundy Thursday 31 March 1994
The washing of the feet, the shared cup and shared bread, the cross .... a single commandment of love, a single TESTIMONY. This is the testimony of Jesus, his "testamentum" or, in Greek, his "marturion", the "martyrdom" of Jesus.
There are many martyrs in our country at present. On both sides, the dead are honoured under the glorious title of "martyrs" or, in Arabic "shouhada" (plural of shahid), which comes from the same root as ìshahÆdaî or the Muslim profession of faith.
We ourselves have long heard the word "martyrdom" in this single sense of a direct relationship with faith, of a testimony to faith in Christ and in Christian dogma. Some of the ìactsî of the martyrs astound us by this confidence of faith.
We live at a time when faith does not exclude doubt and questioning. Often there is something in these ìactsî which disconcerts and worries us today: the harshness of these witnesses of the faith towards their judges, their certainty of being "pure", their stated certainty that their persecutor will go straight to hell. One is tempted to think that fundamentalism is already abroad.
Here when the hour had come for him to pass in faith to the Father, Jesus was indeed "purified" .... but by love. To the one who was not "pure", he still said, "Friend".
We had to wait for the closing years of the 20th century to see the Church attribute the title of "martyr" to someone who was a witness to supreme love rather than to faith: Maximilian Kolbe, martyr of charity. And yet it is written, and we have just heard the words, having loved his own, he loved them all to the end...to the very end of himself, to the end of the other, the end of humanity, of any human being, even of the one who will soon go out into the night after taking his piece of bread, his feet freshly washed. A few verses after this account, John recalls Psalm 40/41:9, "Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me, the heel has just been washed and now, see it is lifted." Love has washed the feet of the future missionaries, and now, with one heart, these feet will now walk the reverse path of treachery and complicity in murder.
The testimony of Jesus, faithful unto death, his "martyrdom", is a martyrdom of love, love for mankind, for all people, even for thieves, for murderers and torturers, those who act in the shadows, ready to treat you like a beast for the slaughter [PsalmÆ48/49] or to torture you to death because one of you has deserted to them. Yet He had already warned them, iF you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners (even the pagans (the KouffirÆr) do as much [Luke 6:32]. For Him, both friends and enemies receive their being from the Father yOu are all brothers!î.
The martyrdom of love includes forgiveness. This is the perfect gift, the gift God gives without reserve. Washing feet, sharing bread, giving his death and forgiving; for Him these are all one and the same and are done for all, for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins [Mat 26:28]. And this is the place of the ultimate freedom, because it is here that the decision of the Son coincides exactly with the loving decision of the Father. Yes, indeed, He can now say of his life, n one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" It is given once and for all, for Judas as it is for Peter, for the two thieves beside him as for Mary-Magdaleine and John at the foot of the Cross, and as for his own Mother. This is His last word, His last instructions, “making love of man the test, the criterion, the gold standard of the love of God” *Maurice Zundel*. To give ones life for love of God, in advance, without conditions, that is what we have done ... or at least what we thought we were doing.
We did not ask how or why. We leave it to God to decide how this gift will be used, its destination day after day, right to the end. Alas, we have all lived long enough to know that it is impossible to do everything out of love, and so to be able to claim that our life is a witness to love, a “martyrdom” of love. “What takes genius is to love”, writes Jean d’Ormesson, “and Christianity is a thing of genius”. This is absolutely true, but I am no genius! From experience we know that little things often cost a lot, particularly when we have to go on doing them day after day. It’s all right to have to wash ones brothers’ feet on Maundy Thursday ... but how about doing it everyday? or washing the feet of anyone who turns up? When Fr. Bernardo (Abbot General) told us that the Order has more need of monks than martyrs, he was not, of course, referring to this type of martyrdom, which is in fact what shapes the monk through so many little things. We have given our heart to God once and for all, and we find it hard when he takes it piecemeal. Taking up an apron, as Jesus did, can be as serious and solemn an act as to lay down ones life ... and conversely, laying down ones life may be as simple as taking up an apron. We should tell ourselves this when the everyday tasks or deeds of love weigh on us with this threat which also has to be shared with all. We know from our own experience that it is easier to give to one person than to another, to love one brother or sister more than another, even in community.
Yet the professional conscience of the doctor, the oath he or she has taken, oblige him or her to treat all patients, “even the devil”, Brother Luke would add. And does not our “professional oath” as religious (indeed as baptised persons to begin with!), oblige us to love all, “even the devil” if God asks this of us? What do we do about it? This is what we were trying to say when we refused to take sides We were not trying to take refuge in neutrality, washing our hands -- this is impossible -- but trying to remain free to love them all, because that is our option, in the name of Jesus and with His grace. If I have given my life to all Algerians, then I have also give it to the “Emir” S.A. It is not he who takes it from me, even if he decides to meet out the same treatment to me as to our Croatian friends .
Yet I hope that he will respect it in the name of the love which God has also inscribed in his human vocation. Jesus could not wish that Judas would betray him. Still calling him “friend”, he spoke to the love buried within him. He sought his Father in this man, and I actually believe that He found Him. From our experience we also know that this martyrdom of charity is not a Christian prerogative. We can receive it from anyone as a gift of the Spirit. Behind the many victims who have already mounted up in the tragedy of Algeria, who knows how many genuine “martyrs” of simple, gratuitous love there may already be? We think of the man who, the other day, saved an injured policeman near to the basilica of Notre Dame d’Afrique. A few days later, he had to pay for this act with his own life. And the Bosnian Muslim who saved his fellow workers, he too was risking his own life. Further back, I cannot forget Mohammed, who protected my life one day by exposing his own .... and who was murdered by his brothers because he refused to betray his friends to them. He refused to take sides. Ubi caritas .... Deus ibi est! This brings us back to Jesus, to His martyrdom,” No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends” [John 15:13-14]. We accept this testimony, but we are aware that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" [Mark 14:38] this is why He leaves us his flesh to eat, to assimilate, as the bread of our testimony .... 2. Tibhirine Chronicle Christian de Chergé on the Situation at Atlas after his last General Chapter Since the meeting at Poyo (Spain, General Chapter of Order) in September 1994 until the present, 58 foreigners have been assassinated in Algeria, of whom 15 were French. We must not forget either the even larger number of Algerian brothers and sisters, victims during the same period from other professional bodies which have been specifically targeted: journalists, intellectuals, health officials, magistrates, municipal officials... without including the police, the officials of the gendarmerie and the armed forces.
Many young people are to be found in this melancholy honours list. A year ago there were 40,000 French people in Algeria; according to the Embassy, there are now a 1,000 remaining, of whom 300 are religious. In Atlas itself, the threat became clearer with the assassination of the Croats on 14th December 4kms away from the monastery, and took definite shape ten days later with the visit on Christmas night of those responsible for the assassination themselves (six armed men including the ‘leader’ of the region). Since then we have been strongly advised, if not to leave the place, at least to accept a measure of security or protection, by the Willaya (Prefecture), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Nunciature. In fact the solutions or measures proposed would have risked a loss of our monastic identity. Moreover, they always left us with the feeling that we would be more insecure than ever. We find that our best security in Algeria is to remain where we are, provided that the authorities do not concern themselves with us... The Christmas visit had practical consequences. The health of one brother was badly shaken (he went to Bellefontaine for convalescence).
Another brother, who had been away temporarily, took his place at the end of the month. One monk in simple profession found lodgings at the diocesan centre in Algiers so that he could study there in quieter conditions. We hesitated for several days before adopting a common policy. There were some who favoured an immediate departure but, thanks to our bishop, came round without difficulty to the solution: wait and see, while preparing plans for an eventual withdrawal, depending on the demands to be presented by the leader’s envoy. We came to an agreement quite easily: - not to pay money to the “brothers of the mountain” to bail out those who kill our brothers. - to stay together. - not to endanger those who work with us. - to remain aware of the consequences that a precipitate departure will have for the other communities of the Church and for the neighbourhood with whom we have been associated for 60 years . On 31st December we took take a series of votes, all of which received a large majority: no return to France; preferential option for Morocco; a promise to return to Algeria as soon as the situation permits; no acceptance of novices here for the moment (Timadeuc has agreed to accept a candidate on probation, and a former novice is now at Orval with the intention of coming back here as soon as possible). This trial will in fact bring the community closer together. Our Church is becoming more and more enfeebled.
There was an assurance that a distinction would be made between foreigners and religious. The double assassination of Br Henri and Sr. Paul-Héléne has proved that wrong; it was followed immediately by actions against the Algerian Christians of Oran. Both were the result of an ill-timed article, which was tendentious and full of errors, and which appeared in Valeurs Actuelles of 31st January ‘94 and was reprinted in full by a Algerian Islamist weekly in April. The author of this article, Madame Annie Laurent, has published an equally damaging series in Le Temps de l’Eglise. One brother, who has been a hermit for thirty years in the mountain opposite the monastery has sought refuge with us. The Little Brothers of Jesus have been expelled from their small plot ‘manu militari’ Most of the convents of religious communities in the suburbs seem destined to disappear. From now on contracts will not be renewed for reasons of security. All this has led to a lot of planning on the part of the major superiors and bishops. And ourselves? This summer was difficult. Constant heat, and outbreaks of fire started by the army; severe drought, lack of water, our economy at risk on two fronts: the guest-house and the garden. We want to remain the heralds of an invincible hope, conscious of the Covenant binding us to this people and which forms part of our vow of stability.
These people (the 80% of the Algerians of whom we ask nothing) could only break this bond by asking us to go. In fact the neighbours are very close to us, and are afraid for us; they are also afraid to see us go because they are afraid for themselves. This Covenant is even more tangible as there have been almost no guests since Christmas. More concretely, we are convinced that if we leave here the army (the ‘brothers of the plain’) will step in; then there will be reprisals, an immediate danger for our closest neighbours. This weighs heavily on our conscience in every discussion. Unquestionably, the ‘brothers of the mountain’ are making more and more encroachments: confiscation of identity cards, destruction of schools, savage regulations... The ‘brothers of the plain’ retaliate violently and ill-advisedly: torture, assassination, demands for money. For the ‘brothers of the mountain’ as for ‘those of the plain’, we are not foreigners like the others, we are not labelled ‘French’; our doctor continues to care for everyone is spite of his 80 years. He is one of our best lightning conductors, as a monk and close friend of the mosque. Work in the garden has been undertaken in a remarkable co-operation with our neighbours, in spite of the many difficulties. One of the associates has been designated a co-manager. In case of our ‘absence’, the others know that he is the one who will take over.
We cannot foresee what is going to happen, even tomorrow. Some think it will become clear very soon. Each day we have to discern, together with the bishop and so together with the Church. One cannot see how the Order can intervene other than by knowing what is going on. We have tried loyally to keep in touch with Father Immediate, although we know that it would be difficult for him to intervene or even to have some idea of what is happening. The bond with the Abbot General is intact, but one scruples to deal directly with the head of the Order. The Regional Conference, in the person of the President, Fr. Etienne, has regularly ‘paid us a visit’ by telephone; we also have links with Timadeuc and Tamié... The rest is hidden in the secrecy of everyone’s prayer and we know we can count on that. One question is no doubt in the minds of many: “How long can they go on in that tense situation?” There are many ways of answering: * monastic life provides an appropriate framework for the daily round; it is an extraordinary grace to take the readings and psalms of each day as a revelation. We must continue to carry out the Office, the chores, our jobs, a welcome at the door... the Brothers eat and sleep. * the community has lived for 8 years (1954-62) in comparable conditions of isolation and insecurity; this has only lasted eight months. * The neighbours find themselves in the same situation and without any possible means of escape. * we have succeeded up to the present in choosing what circumstances have imposed upon us, it is the only way not to be crushed by them: privation, complete lack of newspapers, long delays in the post, no one in the guest-house, drought, etc... the link with Fès is intact and is a support. We have the feeling that this trial will change each and every one of us. One does not live on the frontiers of violence and hope without being touched by them. 3. Last Chronicle from Tibhirine Christian de Chergé Why not begin with the words of the Canticle with which we concluded our previous chronicle (Advent 1993): “She holds him, leaning on her Beloved”? Clinging to him, he keeps us together, and keeps us here in our house of Prayer and of Peace, at Tibhirine, in Algeria, and also in Fès, to-day and every day. During all this time ‘things’ have happened!! How can we tell you about them? First we have to be silent for a long time. We have to listen to the ‘things’ that are not spoken, hidden, smothered, repressed, distorted... to allow ourselves to be pierced by them. We have to stay on our feet; to share a Calvary. It is a table prepared for all, where hope learns, day after day, to be nourished on these ‘things’ which happen to us, to drink as brothers this cup which it would be easier to set aside than to choose. Simple things... All glory to the Lord: the sun rises every day without fail - infinitely benevolent - “on the good as on the wicked”. During the night, we watch. He comes to visit us, to take us into his struggle with light and “guide our feet in the way of peace”. When it rains too, the rain falls “on the just and the unjust”. The seeds sown in the earth have sprung up to give happiness to those here with us; tomatoes, green and red beans, marrows and courgettes, turnips and potatoes... The trees in the orchard are bearing fruit, each according to its kind, and its season. Mohammed-the-guardian is now called the ‘gêrâ’Æ (the overseer).
These days he is a workman, there is some painting to be done inside. Moussa, an open-hearted man, goes between the orchard and the vegetable patch and ‘odd jobs’, communicating to us his stubborn joy: “Courage!” is as it were his password and his determination. Do you know one of the nick-names of Ben’Ali? Watch him working in the garden; he moves so quickly over the ground, now digging an irrigation channel, now weeding onions; he is called ‘Maradona’! And Ben’Aïssa, he is dreaming of sprinklers for watering, ‘jiyât’ (plural of ‘jet’ in the local slang). Between him and Fr. Paul, the foreman of the water, the word becomes a gesture - turning - to imply complicity. Next year, in cha’Allah! Yes, “the whole of the earth is filled with your love”: el hamdu lillah! ALLELUIA! In Fès the weather forecast is very dry: “Spring, summer, a great drought, burning heat, ruining all attempts at cultivation. A well in our garden made us one of the privileged people. Irrigation with the help of Thami, our gardener, gave us some beautiful fruit and vegetables all the same. At last, at the beginning of December, a little rain brought hope. Beautiful things... In Fès, Fr. Bruno carefully tends his multicoloured flower beds. If you like, come and look round our grounds in Tibhirine. The flowers will speak to you; a well-tended path will guide your steps- perhaps you will cry, look how this Algerian family comes to a marriage: “How peaceful it is!” Here Robert is working, still in exile among us, an eager and attentive servant of the beauty of the place. From the terrace, his gaze and his heart escape to the mountain in front of him, ATLAS, where his hermitage lies, desolate. Beauty persists, and holds up its head among the surrounding confusion: forests burnt, trees cut down, savage destruction... “Your strength, Lord, set the mountains in place!”. To our visitors, who are astonished that we do not have TV, we show the ATLAS: this unique mountain chain, in colour, in relief, for 24 hours of the day - we never grow tired of it. Difficult things (dura et aspera)... The hardest is death coming to the one next to us.
In a book about Dachau, we read: “The image of death weighs upon us heavily. It is not only individuals who die, the whole of humanity daily becomes more and more vulnerable to mortality”. Yes, it is true. Christmas ‘94: We remember Christmas ‘93, and are astonished that we are still here, close to the Child which Sr. Odette came to place symbolically in his straw nest. With her Sr. Janet, and also Gilles, Robert, Fernand, the only faithful (the explosion of a train had delayed Dominique). That was all... but there were the neighbouring ‘shepherds’ who kept watch in the guest house, ready to welcome us to the feast after midnight mass. After the vigil, there was the anguish over the airbus taken hostage, and two passengers killed in cold blood. On the evening of 26th, there was the attack on Marseille, and the rescue, with the death of four terrorists. The next day, at midday, four white Fathers from Tizi-Ozou were assassinated. A whole community... a lot of distress in Kabylie and in our little church. Two months previously, on a Sunday, it was sisters Ester and Caridad, on their way to the Eucharist: “Two women who were going to beg grace from God...” wrote Saäd Mekbel in a disturbing editorial in his paper ‘Le Matin’, shortly before he himself became a victim of intolerance, like so many of his associates in the Algerian press. 1995 Cars booby-trapped, violent explosions, murders, reprisals... Sorrow comes to stay, with fear and rejection. Wickedness, veiled hatred, rending the web of human relationships. In spite of everything, life continues, with prices soaring, salaries going down, public transport destroyed, not to mention the closed frontiers; and, a concrete example, the risks of the long road to the town when one has to go each day on foot to work, or to school, and then return at night in the cold. The courage of the ordinary people!
Again, on ‘their’ road, one Sunday, after the Eucharist on 3rd September, our sisters from Belcourt, Bibiane and Angèle-Mary were assassinated. Then, very near us on 10th November, on the way to the Eucharist, it was Odette with Chantal at her side grievously beaten (she is slowly recovering from her injuries). Both had celebrated Easter with us. How could we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord without the faith and courage of “some of our women” (cf. Lk. 24)? They were going to come for Christmas. For the third time, our Ribât was a death-trap: Henri, Christian (Chessel), Odette. It is impossible to forget, to turn the page; they have not died for nothing. Christ loved the Algerians so much that he gave his life for them. And our companions have done the same. We have a good memory of Paschaltide! It is indeed there that our aching hearts find so many other beloved faces. Among them, more recently: Mother Benoit from Echourgnac, who made an excuse to come and support us, the first nun of the order to visit us. Fr. Youakim Moubarac, so disarming in his attachment to our way of life, both here and at Fès. Br Christophe’s father who showed us the same solicitude as he does his twelve children with such tact. And Denis, our confrere, tenacious and passionate right to the end in his tough fight against Aids. Gisèle, the ‘mamy’ of Bernadine, somewhat terrifying, always ready to give her all. Mustapha too, a neighbour, born poor, who died even poorer, so deprived and so touching in his care for his handicapped granddaughter. Among our seniors, Br Cyprian, originally from Tunisia and now in Aiguebelle, keeping up a faithful memory of his stay here between 1967 and 1974.
It seems to us that heaven is full of our friends; such precious relationships. Even more than the threats, their death makes us familiar with our own. We find serenity here in the reassuring foretaste of life. For the “hard and difficult” things, we should ask our doctor brother who bears his burdensome secret. On some days, one can see that he does not know how to go on. The porters have to finish, aware that the duty of hospitality falls to them almost completely. These door step guests are never lacking, they bring their distress and their confidences to us. For all these “dura et aspera” St Benedict asks us to embrace patience. One is engulfed by both. Good things.... Every day, there is the Word and the Bread on our new altar which came from Bab-el-Oued after the closure of the fraternity of the Little Sisters of Jesus. It is a blessing to receive them and taste them in this place; holy ‘things’, and an unfailing Presence. Going out into the garden, there are other very good ‘things’ lovingly prepared by our two kitcheners, the doctor and his assistant, Br Michel. On Thursday night Br Luc hatches a plot, and there is a heap of chips on the table. Gilles comes regularly to do battle with them. Our baker also knows how to find an opportunity to spoil us with some delicacy... a little extra. Zohr, when she can come to confer with us, continues to prepare Kesra, couscous, or ‘tommina’; she goes back laden... And when a marriage brings joy to our neighbour’s hearts in spite of everything, they do not hesitate to share the feast with us: “a ïdnã aïdkum!” (our feast is your feast!).
In his courses at Medea, in an unbroken rhythm, Br Jean-Pierre always receives a great welcome from the shopkeepers: “always very pleasant and kind” he assures us. In the absence of guests (where have the Christians gone?) we appreciate all the more the regular visits of our archbishop, Fr. Teissier, and some of the faithful (Sr. Anne-Genevieve of Grandchamp, for example), the bolder ones, (some say they are reckless); they are often driven here by our curé. The telephone brings us contact with others, our families, the monasteries of the ‘Region’, the ‘seniors’ of Algeria who have gone overseas, constrained by evil ‘things’. The postman comes too, with discouraging delays (up to two or three months this summer from France!). All through this we feel upheld, surrounded by prayer and friendship. It is a true shield, we happily dispense with any other system of defence. “You and we are together in the hand of God” according to the faith of our neighbours. This is where each one of us finds our deepest gratitude! For Br Michel, it was a wonderful thing to be able, after more than 5 years, to see his family and our brethren at Bellefontaine and Aiguebelle, and his brothers at Prado, Marseilles.
The visits to Fès come under the same rubric. Here is a word from our Moroccan brothers: “Our year has been marked by the arrival of some of our brothers from Atlas. From mid-January to the end of March, Br Celestin came to rest and recover from ill-health; he helped us improve our office. Br Christian, our Prior, wanted to celebrate Holy Week and the Resurrection of the Lord with us; celebrations which were enhanced by the presence of the noviciate of the Little Sisters of Jesus (who renewed our youth again during the autumn). On Easter Monday we celebrated the jubilee of Fr. Jean de la Croix; 50 years of monastic life spent at N.D. du Désert. and finally, the things... to come From Fès we have two further events: First the closure of the diocesan synod of Rabat, after two years, considering the theme: “What is the Church in Morocco today?” Our archbishop, Mgr Hubert Michon, wrote to the three monastic communities in Morocco to entrust these proceedings of the diocesan church to their prayers. Br Bruno and Br Guy took part in the great assembly of the people of God on Pentecost Sunday, when the acts of the Synod were proclaimed. Then, at the end of the year, Dom Armand Veilleux came from Rome as the delegate of our Abbot General to make the regular visitation of our community, the annexe of ND de l’Atlas where he will go next January. It was a time when each one looked at the question: “Why have I come here?” It was a time of new beginnings. Our Prior came for the occasion, and with him we took up this extensive revision of life. He left us on the first Sunday of Advent, and we went into retreat, aware of a long period of grace. No one is forgotten. At Tibhirine, the ‘things to come’ surely bring hope. The health of all of us... will surely follow. Br Celestin had phlebitis in August and went to Medea to hospital; Br Luc became exhausted by the heat; when it became cold Br Amèdée started pneumonia... not too bad; then he got better, thanks be to God. The difficult life of the poorest people around us makes our troubles and worries very relative.
The presidential election of 16th November, and the preceding electoral campaign marked an important and hopeful stage for our neighbourhood and the country at large. The large turn-out for voting was first of all a free and courageous message of the whole people: the peaceful refusal of violence from wherever it comes; a majority desire for a true democracy through fresh initiatives; a witness before our eyes of an Algerian identity which is searching and building, particularly in its relation with Islam. Is not this the first step, fragile but real, towards a future reconciliation with justice and peace for all? Our hard-working presence and our silent prayer accompanies them in their trials and in their hope.... Close to Mary, we wish you a Christmas full of hope and joy, and for a good year ahead; we share with you this word of our sister Odette (at the meeting at Ribât on All Saints 1994): “The fidelity asked of us is for this present moment. God only gives us this present moment to live in forgiveness, love, hope and peace. On the memorial of St John of the Cross 14th December 1995 2nd anniversary of the assassination of our twelve Croatian Christian brothers in the neighbouring village of Tamesguida. your brothers of ND de l’ATLAS. With you and through you, dear Dom Bernard, we share a bit of our life and send our good wishes. Thank you to all the personnel of A.I.M. for their work. Dom Armand Veilleux is here at present, and gives us good news of your health. I rejoice.
Here, we are in PEACE … like a small child who needs to grow. But this does not prevent the massacre of the innocents. Patience and confidence! In close communion. Br Christian. The Last Photograph of the Atlas group Back: Michel, Christian, Armand, Christophe, Luc. Front: Jean-Pierre, Amèdée, Paul, Celestin Scan from photo sent by friend of Atlas in Algiers 4. The Church: Ongoing Incarnation Last conferences, Lenten Retreat 8th March, 1996 Christian de Chergé Normally the monk only can help his brothers and sisters on their journey towards God in his place and with his community. But it is true that at present our 'place' is rather difficult to get to. Our Bishop said to me, "It is easier to move the stool than the piano!". I want to tell you that we all have to be "moved", in the end you won't get off Scot free! If we want to offer ourselves entirely to the Lord and leave the initiative up to him, we have to be ready to move. This will be done by the tool he chooses to use: the word I am about to say to you, which may not necessarily find you where you are. Let us begin by welcoming it. It is true that it comes from another place, and I highlight this difference; I come from the mountain, from the country; whereas you are more used to the town, the sea, the plains. My daily life takes place in a peasant setting and I was born in Europe; whereas most of you are students, teachers, civil servants or retired people and many of you were born in Algeria or elsewhere in Africa. Then again the vocation of the monk is to be separated from the world, whereas the vocation of the laity is to be in the world. In fact, for the time being, we are separated above all from the Christian community and we live entirely in the Algerian world ... But we must also let ourselves be moved together.
We share two basic things: first of all our bond of special love for Jesus Christ which leads us to the Father; and then we actually live here in this country -- by choice or by necessity -- and this is our reality. Finally, once we have allowed ourselves to be moved, we must return to ourselves, and to return to oneself is always to return to oneself in the heart of God. What is our call, what is the grace which we are given to live? This question calls for an individual answer, not a group answer. It is undoubtedly good to share this, but first of all we must allow it to resonate within ourselves. We come together too quickly, we say things, and we stay on the surface of ourselves, because we fear the time of silence when the real questions are bound to rise up from within the heart. This is a real question. First of all, this question came to us in the Church. It has been asked of religious and religious have asked it. I will simply situate it in context; it happened in September 1995, during the funeral of our sisters Bibiane and Angèle. After Communion, the papal Legate (who was the Secretary of the Congregation for religious), read through the Constitutions of the Congregation of Our Lady of the Apostles, the congregation to which the two sisters belonged. This is what he said to us: "This is what I have read in these texts: art 7: We are ready to risk everything for the Lord. art. 11: By accepting the daily renunciation and difficulties, we enter into the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection which is inseparable from any apostolic life. art 13: The ideal of the Congregation is to become a seed of hope, of salvation, particularly amongst the poorest of the poor.” And he added, "I thank you in the name of the Church, for what is written in the letter, you have truly lived. This letter is no dead letter. What the Holy Spirit placed in your heart as a call, He gave you the strength to accomplish, as a Gospel call.”
In fact, this happened not only in the final brutal ending. Thirty years living in the Belcourt district, day after day, was thirty years of the faithfulness displayed to us and to everyone else. The Legate then wanted to meet the superiors of religious congregations. He told to us, "The Church must be present in all borderline situations, and therefore in Algeria in the present situation. She can only do this through you. But she cannot demand this of anyone, except by showing you the consistency between what you have vowed and what you have written in your appeal and what has to be lived today". Our community at Tibhirine then wrote to all the communities: in the present circumstances, are we being true to the charism of our congregation? To ask this question is to become aware that what we have to live out is consistent with our calling. This doesn't marginalise us. When the conditions in which we live change and become frightening, overwhelming, this does not necessarily mean that we are no longer in the right place. So I think it is important that each of us should ask ourselves, in the light of the grace of our baptism, what it is in this grace that asks me to live as best I can what I am called to be today? And to lead us into this return to self that each of us must undertake, I now want to relate this to the great mystery of ours: the mystery of the Incarnation. The Incarnation One could say that this isn't the right time. We're in the middle of Lent! The mystery of this season is the paschal mystery, and when we think of the paschal mystery, we think of the Redemption. Yes, but can there be any paschal mystery without the Incarnation? Is the Incarnation simply the birth and public life of Jesus? Are this death and this resurrection not part of the Incarnation?
Yes indeed, for the Son of God has assumed a human nature like our own, and brings it to its fulfilment, which is to enter into the life of God. The Incarnation continues in the glory of Jesus living with his Father. At Christmas, our Parish Priest, Fr. Gilles Nicholas, said, "We must find within the mystery of the Incarnation our real reasons for staying despite the threats and upheaval. Christmas is Emmanuel, God, silently present, the presence of love itself, the only truly revolutionary force which can transform all our hearts.” What was true at Christmas must also be true at Easter. The mystery of the Incarnation remains what we are called to live, and it seems to me that it is here that our deepest reasons for staying, our reasons for being here, take root. We must have a very broad vision of the paschal mystery. Everything in Christ's life is paschal. Easter -- the Pasch -- begins as soon as God shares the finite limits of Man, shares what we are. It is clearly stated in the Council document Gaudium et Spes, which I believe is the charter of the baptised, the charter of the Christian, and therefore, if you will, the charter of the laity. Out of all the Council documents, I think this is the one which best deals with the questions asked by our world : GS 22, §2: “By his Incarnation, he, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each individual. He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will and with a human heart, he loved.
Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin. §4 ... *the Christian* as one who has been made a partner in the paschal mystery, and as one who has been configured to the death of Christ, will go forward, strengthened by hope, to the resurrection. §5 All this holds true not only for Christians, but also for all people of good will in whose hearts grace is acting invisibly. For since Christ died for everyone, and since all are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way known to God, in the paschal mystery.” This is our witness, and the only way we can proclaim it is by living out where we are, as what we are, in the most mundane realities of daily life. In one of the earliest texts in the Christian tradition, the Epistle to Diognetus , which was written when persecution was at its height, we read: §5 The difference between Christians and the rest of mankind is not a question of nationality, or language or customs. Christians do not live apart in separate cities of their own, speak any special dialect; nor practice any eccentric way of life. ... They conform to local usage in their clothing, diet *we like couscous and unleavened bread, so much the better!* and other habits. Nevertheless, the organisation of their community does exhibit some features that are remarkable, and even surprising. For instance, although they are residents at home in their own countries, their behaviour there is more like that of transients; they take their full part as citizens, but they also submit to anything and everything as if they were aliens. For them, any foreign country is a motherland, and any motherland is a foreign country. ... They show love to all men -- and all men persecute them." The Incarnation is persecuted!
In a word, what the soul is in the body, Christians are in the world. This is our mystery. This is what I am talking about. It is here too that I want us to find Mary, or rather it is there that she is waiting for us, for her presence at Calvary draws all its significance from the fact that she had been there from the beginning and for everything... She was as natural at Calvary as she had been in Nazareth or at Cana. this is the school of Nazareth. At Tibhirine we are in the thick of it. We are not all alone on our mountain. Ashab eljbel means those who have chosen armed violence. The grace of our community has been to be confronted with this tragedy which has struck the country in the liturgical context of Advent and Christmas. It began on 14th December 1993, when a couple of miles from us, virtually under our windows, twelve Croats were murdered at Tamesguida; and the perpetrators of this massacre visited the monastery on Christmas Eve 1993. At that time, we had to "fast forward", remaining in the grace of Christmas, but accepting that this grace could be an invitation to us to live the paschal mystery. They left ... When they had gone, what we had to do was to go on living; and the first thing to be lived was the celebration of the vigil and midnight mass. This is what we had to do and what we in fact did. We let ourselves be drawn by this prayer of the Church, by this reality. We sang in the feast of Christmas and we welcomed this Child, who came to us utterly defenceless and yet already under threat. In fact the slaughter of the innocents, the slaughter of the Croats, took place before Christmas. And then afterwards, what saved us was having all these daily tasks to go on performing: cooking, gardening, the Office, the bells .... day after day.
We went on, saying to ourselves: we'll hang on today, and then tomorrow, and then the next day ....Our Bishop helped us to do this. We had to allow ourselves to be disarmed and renounce the attitude of violence which would have led us to respond to provocation by becoming hard. In fact, if we situate ourselves in this perspective, we discover that Jesus is inviting us to be born. Our human identity progresses from birth to birth, from beginning to beginning. The Evangelist of the Incarnation is Saint John, whose message is really a proclamation of this fundamental reality, "The Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us"; well, it so happens that this Evangelist was the only one present at the foot of the Cross, and his entire life was spent in developing this mystery of the Incarnation. He developed it as a mystery of birth (Nicodemus, to be born from on high, to be born again), like that of a woman who is about to give birth, she is in distress, but it will come, joy is there, a child is to be born to the world. And from birth to birth, we too give birth to the child of God which we are. For the Incarnation for us means allowing the filial reality of Jesus to take flesh in our human nature, in my own human nature. And this birth which takes place is offered to us in the Church, in the time of the Church; the Church is the ongoing Incarnation. She has been chosen to continue the Incarnation, and she has only us to continue it. Day by day, she can count on us alone, as the papal legate said, for better and for beyond the worst. At the time when we were so dreadfully upset in our community, I consulted our Abbot General by telephone (he is the holder of a charism, not a superior who gives orders). Jokingly he said to me, "the Order needs monks not martyrs...". Did this mean, don't expose yourselves to danger? If the Order needs monks, isn't the real question, "Does the Order need us to be monks in this situation which is ours? Does the Church need monks in every situation she confronts? And even, does the country need monks, does the country need us? .. and yes, there we answered: 'Yes'. This afternoon we will try to get a clearer picture of martyrdom, but let us leave it there, it doesn't concern us, it is danger. In the l’Echo d’Oran *newspaper*, an African student who had gone home for the summer, asked his grandfather for his advice, when many people were advising him against returning to Algeria. He replied, "Where you have to struggle to live, that is where you should go, because it is there that you will deepen your life." I leave the grandfather to shoulder his responsibility for his answer, but I note that the student shouldered the responsibility of coming back.
The purpose of the Pasch of Christ is the redemption, but its mode is the Incarnation. The purpose belongs personally to the Son, who had something to save in us which He alone could save. But the mode is fully ours, and because it is ours, he encounters us there. Saint François de Sales said that we must "accept all thingswith equanimity, for everything can contribute to the glory God." In our Rule, St Benedict has this little phrase in one chapter: "That in all things God may be glorified". He actually says this about trade! The craftsmen of the monastery must live by the work of their hands, but they are to sell their wares a little cheaper than seculars can "So that in all things God may be glorified". The Incarnation is as simple as that. It meets us in the kitchen! It also meets us on a road where we must have a great deal of humility and modesty, for it is not easy to be heroic on a daily basis. We are well aware that we are often caught off-guard by the need for day to day courage. In our prayer we sing, "Strangers and pilgrims, always ready to leave, we wait for the day and the hour ...". Yes, yes,.... we are more ready to leave Algeria than to leave this world. One way of obeying this vocation inaugurated by Jesus, is by allowing the words of our prayer and our faith to encounter what we are experiencing, this is having our words and our deeds in unison.
First consequence: perseverance, patience Saint Benedict says (I am speaking of my own experience, but it is also in the Gospel), "In the enclosure of the monastery and persevering unto death, the monks will participate through patience in the sufferings of Christ". Patience and Passion: they share the same etymology. The word "martyrdom" is totally absent from our Constitutions, violent, bloody death for the Gospel is not mentioned in our Constitutions, but we are asked for daily patience. After this visitation at Christmas 1993, Cardinal Duval telephoned us, "The whole Church is with you! - But what can I advise you? -- Constancy, Father, constancy". Our neighbours said, "Be brave!". What Fr. Lafitte, on the day of the celebration for Unity, called the passive virtues. We want to plunge on. But no! Mary cultivated these virtues, they are genuine virtues. I think that Jesus came to teach them to us. If he had wanted to, he could have called on legions of angels, this is our tendency. It may take some time ... let us take the time to persevere. Second consequence: poverty, hope Not straying into the future, which belongs to God. Patience is the virtue of hope, and there can be hope only if we are willing not to see. Wanting to see or imagine the future is simply indulging in hope-fiction, and it seems to me that in a way it involves violating it.
Forgive me, but I prefer blunt words to combat this temptation, and perhaps to denounce it. In the Hebrew Passover there was the gift of the Manna, and it was a daily gift: this was shown by the fact that if someone collected too much, it was devoured by worms and if someone tried to keep it for the next day, it had gone rotten. Obviously, as we do not have God's imagination, when we think the future, we think about it like the past. Re-read Mark 8:14-21. Jesus is in the boat with his apostles and they have only taken one loaf of bread with them. The first multiplication of the loaves took place, and twelve baskets full were left over, this was followed by the second multiplication of the loaves, with seven baskets full left over... and yet the apostles are still saying "we won't have enough bread"! To which Jesus replies, "Have you still not understood?". Mark alone tells us that they had only one loaf in the boat. We know who this bread is, and as long as we have this bread with us in the boat, we need not worry, it will be multiplied tomorrow, but in a new way. When one is in a tunnel, one can see nothing, but it would still be absurd to expect the scenery to be the same when we come out as it had been when we went in. In this regard we monks join with you lay people. One can imagine that the religious congregations could be asked to send people, assuming that they have some. But when what is involved is recruiting for the Church of tomorrow, here, there is no-one to ask because we are independent. And where will we find lay people? Let the Holy Spirit do his work. He will go fishing. It's his job. That is what I call poverty.
In the Koran there is a magnificent verse, a prayer of Moses: " My Lord I am utterly impoverished, totally poor of this good which you wish to send me". In other words, I need only that which you have always wanted to give me. I think that true poverty is this: the future belongs to God who, from all eternity wants to satisfy us. And then it is a great opportunity for us in the Church, for in "abandon" we are united with the youth of this country, of this continent who cannot see what their future is to be. And would we want more security for ourselves ...? Third consequence: the presence, Emmanuel The unique and irreplaceable presence of the baptised. "Emmanuel", this is what he was once in order so to remain for ever, but he can only do it through us, God with us. We are the witnesses of the Emmanuel. This presence of God with men is assumed in the Eucharist, but there is a real presence of God with men which is provided by the baptised. There is a presence of "God with men" which we ourselves must provide. And this is to be seen in a special way in the Muslim world. In 1977, Max Thurian wrote, "The Church must provide a fraternal presence of men and women who share as far as possible the life of Muslims, in silence, in prayer and in friendship ... this is how what God wants for the relationship between the Church and Islam will be prepared”. These relationships are still faltering for we have not yet lived long enough at their side. God so loved the Algerians that He gave them his Son, his Church, each one of us. There is no greater love than to lay down ones life for those one loves, and to do it moment after moment. Thou shalt not kill You can say to yourself, "there has been enough killing in this country; for once, while we are alone together, let us leave it on one side ... But is seems to me, on the contrary, that we should see in this one of the consequences of what we have already shared, for the Incarnation culminated in a killing and in the Redemption, that is our human deliverance given at this price. Murder is a reality in our sacred history. And our sacred history continues, it is that of today, that in which we are ourselves. The root of the word 'to kill' occurs three hundred times in the Bible. There is a lot of killing in it. We still have the same impulse as the rich young man, we say to ourselves: what do we need for eternal life? And Jesus replies, "Thou shalt not kill etc." Then the young man says, "I have observed all this since my youth". I think that we are ready to give the same sort of reply: I have observed all this since my youth" ... None of us has directly killed anyone!
A philosopher who died recently, Emmanuel Lévinas, said, " Morality entered the world through this commandment.. The first word spoken to me by the face of the other is a plea for life: respect me." In our Rule of St Benedict, there is a chapter entitled the Instruments of Good Works, the seventy-three instruments of good works, seventy-three ways of doing good. Firstly, love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and love your neighbour as yourself. Then: do not kill. This is what monks are urged, do not kill! Some monks have killed their abbot, but it isn't very common. Then in the Gospel, in the Sermon on the Mount, we stop at the Beatitudes. This is the high wire, our charter. We recognise ourselves in it But this is only the beginning, then comes, "You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world"; and then "I have not come to abolish, but to fulfil ...". And we come down again, he quotes the Law, "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, you shall not murder".... Jesus feels the need to re-centre us, and he begins with this; he leaves out the first four commandments and goes straight to the fifth. Death came into the world through a murder. The first death in our sacred history is that of Abel. Brotherhood came into this history through Cain and Abel, and death too, through the murder of the brother. We can perhaps say that in the murder of the brother, it was the son who was killed, the son of the same father, the Son of the Father. We can also say that before the murder of Abel, there was the murderous undertaking which is known as sin, for wanting to drive God from ones horizon, wanting to put oneself in the place of God is finally the work of death. Before the murder of the son, there has perhaps already been the murder of the Father. Look again at the magnificent third chapter of the book of Genesis, the chapter about the sin known as "original" sin. It does indeed involve usurping the place of God. This is the advice given by the one who has been a murderer from the beginning. By facing death Jesus frees us from murder, from being accomplices in murder. It is the Son who chooses life with the Father and life with the brethren. He comes to say to us, "Do not fear those who can kill the body (and he gives us his example), but fear rather those who can kill the soul...." In fact, there are different ways of killing. One may kill accidentally, involuntarily, in self defence etc.
But we are well aware that one can kill in another way. To wreak vengeance on the body of a dead person, to maltreat his corpse, that is killing twice over! In the New Testament, we are told that Jesus killed, "he has killed hatred" (Eph 2: 16). "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer and no murderer has eternal life in him" (1 Jn 3: 15). This is how we run the risk of committing murder and are threatened by death. We must be able to ask ourselves: have I got rid of all forms of hatred from my heart? We cannot live in the current context and desire peace and life unless we go right through with this ... and no-one can say that he has fully succeeded. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. There is nothing like the common life, life in society, family life for discovering where the murderer can lurk. Here *the French* language comes to our aid: we speak of words that are wounding, of lethal phrases, menacing silences, looks that kill, of eyes like daggers ... and then we trample, we cut, we slash, we eliminate ... Other languages all have something similar. There are so many ways of wounding, and sometimes fatally. If we return to the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus was beginning to develop his commandments, he said: "If your brother has something against you, go first and be reconciled; if your brother wants to kill you, go first and find him". And God himself gave the example with Cain: in a single instant we encounter the first murder and the first prayer, the first forgiveness, the first mercy (Genesis 4); the Lord placed a sign on Cain. Similarly, in Genesis 9, when God made his alliance with Noah: I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by a man shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made mankind." If there is a prohibition on murder, it is because when we kill, what we kill is the image of God. In every human being, there is something of the eternal, which goes further than homicide, and this is why I cannot do my own justice. In the same way, Emmanuel Lévinas said "to approach ones neighbour is to become one's brother's keeper; to become one brother's keeper is to become his hostage.
Rightly ordered justice begins with the other man. Here too I can turn to a few minutes we experienced ourselves.
When I found myself alone for a quarter of an hour with Sayah Attiah, the murderer of the twelve Croatians and the head of the GIA in our region, he presented himself as such. He came with some demands. He was armed with a dagger and a sub-machine gun. There were six of them in all, and it was night. He had started by agreeing to come out of the house, because I did not want to talk to an armed man in a house with a vocation of peace. So we went outside... he looked to me to be unarmed. We were there, face to face. He presented his three demands, and three times I was able to say "No" or "not like that". He did say "You have no choice", and I said, "But I do have a choice". Not only because I was the "keeper" of my brethren, but also because I was the keeper of this brother who was there before me and who had to be able to discover something else in himself other than what he had become. And to some extent this is what transpired in as much as he gave way, and tried to understand.
We hear it said that they are foul beasts, that they aren't human, that we cannot deal with them. But what I say is that if we talk like that, we will never have peace. I know that he had cut the throat of one hundred and forty-five people .. but since his death, I have tried to imagine his arrival in Paradise and I think that in the eyes of the good Lord I have the right to submit three attenuating circumstances on his behalf:
firstly, the fact that he didn't cut our throats;
secondly) he came outside when I asked him to. And then when he died a few kilometres from us, he lay injured and dying for nine days. As he had agreed not to call out our doctor, not to send for him -- the doctor should not go out because he is too old -- he had agreed to this and so he did not send for him;
the third attenuating circumstance: after our night-time conversation, I said to him: "We are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, for us it is the birth of the prince of peace, and you arrive like this bearing arms! He answered, "Forgive me, I did not know...".
I am not excusing anyone. It is not for me to pass judgement, each of his crimes was horrible, but he is not a foul beast. Now it is up to the mercy of God to act.
Another time a different group came; once again it was night. They wanted to use the telephone. It was necessary to lay down limits, to negotiate. When arms are involved it is not easy. Finally, they were able to use our cordless 'phone, but outside the house and we were present all the time they were on the 'phone. We, that is X ... and I. While they were trying to get through .. it was difficult because of the storm ... we talked a great deal. X ... , who was a bit edgy and who smokes a lot, asked if he might smoke. The leader then said that this was haram, forbidden. He began to elaborate, the Prophet had forbidden it etc...In the end, I said to him, "Look, if you can show me a single text in the Hadith or the Koran which prohibits cigarettes I will believe you, but I can promise you that it is not written. You are simply putting words into God's mouth -- and this is not written there." Silence ... Three minutes later, X ... calmly struck his match, lit his cigarette and said, "what is haram is to kill others". I had the feeling that in that instant, the entire Gospel was spoken. This led to a discussion, but ...
Here too I see three consequences, if we want to go into them:
The first consequence concerns martyrdom
What we call martyrdom is a life given unto the shedding of blood for the faith. There are martyrs everywhere. In this country, all who die a violent death are described as "chouhada".
Let us not speak too much of our own martyrs. And if we do speak of them, let us not forget that the first martyrs in this conflict were the twelve Croatians. They are martyrs in the Christian meaning of the term, martyred, murdered, with their throats cut in their living quarters because they were Christians. Then came the eleven religious brothers and sisters. They had all been our guests, I envisage them in their last moments, living exactly as they had just before. I see their last instants in the logic of all that went before. For me it is important that they were all murdered while they were in their usual place and while they were about their usual occupations, being their usual selves.
We are often told how extraordinary, how admirable it is ... we must leave all this aside. A sermon of Thomas Beckett, who was murdered in the end says, Christian martyrdom is not an accident, still less can the martyrdom of a Christian be the expression of a man's desire to be a martyr. A martyrdom is never a human plan. The true martyr is one who has become an instrument of God, one who has lost his own will in the will of God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of undergoing martyrdom.
And indeed it is very clear that we cannot hope for such a death, not just because we are afraid of it, but because we could not wish for glory achieved at the price of a murder, a glory which would make a murderer of the person to whom I would owe it. God cannot allow this: You shall not kill, this commandment falls on my brother and I must do everything to love him enough to turn him aside from what he wants to do.
I love all Algerians enough, to wish that not one of them should be the Cain of his brother. But in advance I entrust to the mercy of the Father the one who in his misguided freedom will become a murderer. And if I am the one he attacks, I would like to be able to say that he did not know what he was doing, accord him every attenuating circumstance.
Second consequence: praying for ones enemies.
Following on from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus continues, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you'." The second consequence is this duty to pray. Do we pray enough for each other, praying at full stretch, without limits? In his Letter to the Romans, St Paul tells us, "Persevere in hardship, keep praying regularly". We cannot persevere unless we pray. And praying, particularly by confessing the violence, prejudice and rejection that lies within us.
After the Christmas visitation, it took me two or three weeks to return from my own death. One can accept death very quickly, don't worry, but it takes time to find ones footing again afterwards. I said to myself, those men, that bloke I had such a terribly tense conversation with, what prayer can I make for him? I cannot ask God to kill him. But I can say, disarm him. Later I wondered, have I the right to pray "disarm him" if I don't start by asking "disarm us in our community"?. This is what I pray every day; in all simplicity I am telling you about it.
It was at this time too that the prayer of the psalms became very close to us. Sometimes they seem barbaric to us, but now we were right in there "Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them." This was Jeremiah in the reading we had the day before yesterday.
Third consequence: forgiveness
Forgive us as we forgive. Embark on a process of forgiveness. Still from the Sermon on the Mount. Embark on an inner process of forgiveness.
There has been a tendency to make fun of Rahma, the pardon which can be granted by the authorities; but we shouldn't make fun of it, mercy should never be mocked. Brother Henri, who was well aware of being in a hot spot, wrote in his last letter to me in February, "In our daily contacts, let us openly side with love, forgiveness and communion and against hatred, vengeance and violence."
And you have read the message from Cardinal Arinze for the feast of the Aïd, which is entirely centred on forgiveness, "receiving forgiveness and granting forgiveness to one's neighbour go together, and there is a long way to travel. We must forgive each other from the depths of the heart. A true reconciliation and a shared determination to build a better world for future generations. We feel inadequate for such a task unless God acts in our hearts". This is how our Church believes she can greet Muslims, but in fact, on the Christian side, she has only us to respond to these desires. She commits us.
I sent this greeting to the imam of the neighbouring village of Draa Essamar who had written to us at Christmas for the past two years. So I answered him, and this year I wrote to him for the great feast of Aïd and sent him cardinal Arinze's greetings. He is someone I don't yet know. He replied, and his letter is dated 2nd March:
"I thank you with all my heart for sending your greeting for the Aïd el Fitr to myself and the Muslims of Draa Essamar. And I am unable to express to you my real joy of seeing the two communities, the Muslim and Christian communities, exchanging greetings for each others feasts. I hope that our letters will be small steps along the way of Muslim and Christian partnership. In the hope that during this fast, peace may reign in this country and in other countries and nations of the world, whatever their religion and race. I thank you also for the letter from cardinal Francis Arinze which reveals a great desire and faith to create brotherhood between religions. Please accept my best wishes and greet the community on my behalf."
In order to exorcise the tendencies we have within us to take sides, to support one group rather than another, to distribute awards for quality and awards for honour, we as a community had an instinct -- and instinct which with hindsight I perceive to have been a saving grace, but which just came to us like that -- to call the men from the mountain who visited us (and who are known as terrorists) "the brothers from the mountain", and to call the armed forces "the brothers from the plain". This is very useful when speaking on the 'phone. It is a way of remaining fraternal.
To summarise: do not kill
Do not kill oneself: to wonder, perhaps today, whether I love myself enough? Am I not destroying myself?
Do not kill time: do I respect God's own time enough?
Do not kill trust: it is so easy to say, "I don't trust him"; and someone who is no longer trusted by another person dies.
Do not kill death: which means don't treat it as banal; death is always someone's death. And do not blot is out from your mind, not even your own death; my death is part of my life.
Do not kill the country; there is a tendency to dismiss Algeria as a corpse. Not yet! The country is gravely ill, but we are all hospitalised to some extent.
Do not kill the Muslim: any Muslim, and above all no Muslim because he belongs to that sort of Islam, which is thought of as extremist Islam.
Do not kill the Church, our Church; this can take the form of lethal words.
The five pillars of peace
From our sharing can we try to come up with five words beginning with P .. like peace? In French, because I am a French speaker ! It is a mnemonic.
I think that there can be no peace without these five pillars. But peace is above all a gift of God. It is given to us. Let us not deny its existence, it is here. We must simply make it manifest:
Patience Poverty Presence Prayer Pardon
As if by chance, "Pardon" (or forgiveness) is the first name in the litany of the 99 names of God, "Ar Rahman". And Patience is the last of the 99, "Es Sabour". But God himself is poor, God himself is present, God himself is prayer.
This is the peace which God gives. This is not how the world gives it.
And because today is international women's day, I can add this: there is somewhere the mother of one of the brothers in the community who after the Christmas "visitation" used a photograph of all the brothers for the community and that of Sayah Attiah to mark the same page of her prayer book. Only a woman would do that ....
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