Atlas Monks

Atlas Martyrs Commemoration

On Tuesday, 13 May 2014, 19:00, William Wardle <williamwardle2bp@btinternet.com> wrote:

Dear Father Donald,

I am so glad that the envelope arrived safely, and that you like the presentation. Please tell Fr. Nivard that the layout of the card was only successful because he demonstrated how to handle the page numbering of folded documents, making a little template first as he showed me with his complex compilations!

The Seven Red Roses have been ordered for delivery on Monday 19th, giving them a day in the warmth to open before the memorial day. A further copy of the card is to accompany the roses. Indeed, Erica's asked if I was sending a card 'as usual' when I telephoned!

I attach the A4 pages that lay out the contents of the card in case you might wish to use any part in your presentation on your Blog. It is (sadly)  in old Word's '.doc' format [not '.docx' which was a granted in a 'starter' suite, but which I have no longer]. I hope you will be able to open it. The photograph of the Martyrs that delighted me most, after much searching, was the small one of the Community around the table, just as portrayed in the film. It 'felt' so real when I saw the film, I was very pleased to find the actual moment.

I have been remembering the Fatima story of Our Lady's appearances to Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta which you shared with me, and I have been reading http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000626_message-fatima_en.html It is of the unfolding of the Message, and as I read it I feel curiously over-sensitized, as one does alone in a church when one hears or senses an unknown presence... A deep mystery surrounds the meaning of the apparition granted to the little shepherds.

Thank you for your email. I will be uniting with you in the Atlas Martyrs commemoration on 21st. Their community spirit and their spirit of sacrifice will always remain with us.

With my love in Our Lord,

William

IN LOVING COMMEMORATION OF THE MARTYRS OF OUR LADY OF ATLAS

21^st May 2014

ATLAS MADONNA From OCSO Website

                   

               

      

Witnesses of faith, the Gospel of Hope

I want to point out to everyone, so that it will never be forgotten, that great sign of hope represented by the many witnesses to the Christian faith who lived in the last century. They found suitable ways to proclaim the Gospel amid situations of hostility and persecution, often even making the supreme sacrifice by shedding their blood.

These witnesses, and particularly those who suffered martyrdom, are an eloquent and magnificent sign which we are called to contemplate and to imitate. They show us the vitality of the Church; they stand before us as a light for the Church and for humanity because they caused the light of Christ to shine in the darkness.

In this way, martyrs proclaim the 'Gospel of hope' and bear witnesses to it with their lives to the point of shedding their blood, because they are certain that they cannot live without Christ and are ready to die for him in the conviction that Jesus is the Lord and the Saviour of humanity and that, therefore, only in him does mankind find true fullness of life. According to the exhortation of the Apostle Peter, their example shows them ready "to give reason for the hope that is in them".

(cf. 1 Pt 3,15).

Furthermore, martyrs celebrate the 'Gospel of hope' because the offering of their lives is the greatest manifestation of the "living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which constitutes true spiritual worship" (cf. Rom 12:1), and the source, soul and summit of every Christian celebration. Finally, martyrs serve the 'Gospel of hope', because they express in their martyrdom a love and service of humanity to a high degree insofar as they demonstrate that obedience to the law of the Gospel begets a moral and social life which honours and promotes the dignity and freedom of every person.

Blessed John-Paul 11, Rome, at Saint Peter's, on 28 June,

the Vigil ofthe Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in the year 2003  
   

                   

THE ATLAS MARTYRS  

21^ST May 1996
DOM CHRISTIAN DE CHERGE  

"It is certain that God loves the Algerians and without doubt has chosen to show them this by giving them our lives ... For each one it is a moment of truth and heavy responsibility in these times when those we love feel so little loved. Each one learns to integrate, little by little, death in this gift and with death all the other conditions of this ministry of living together which is a demand of total gratuity"

BR. LUC DOCIDER              

'What can happen to us? To go towards the Lord and to be immersed in his tenderness. God is all merciful and the great forgiver...There is no true love of God without consenting unreservedly to Death ... Death is God"

FR. CHRISTOPHE LEBRETON

"My body is for the earth; but please, no protection between it and me. My heart is for life, but please no way between it and me. My hands for work are crossed, very simply. May my face be absolutely bare so as not to prevent the kiss. And the look, let it see it"

BR. MICHEL FLEURY

"Spirit Holy Creator, deign to bind me as soon as possible - not my will but yours be done - to the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, our Lord, with the means that you would want, sure that You, Lord, will live itin me .. ."

                   

                   

FR. BRUNO LEMARCHAND

"You lead me, Lord, in silence and in prayer, in work and in joyous service of my brothers, in the example of your hidden life at Nazareth ... I am always happy in my monastic life and to live in the land of Islam. Quite simply: here is Nazareth with Jesus, Mary and [oseph ... "

FR. CELESTIN RINGEARD

"0 Jesus, I accept with all my heart that your death is renewed and accomplished in me; I know that with you we ascend from the dizzy descent into the abyss, proclaiming to the demon his defeat"

BR. PAUL FA VRE-MIVILLE

"What will remain in a few months of the Church of Algeria, of its visibility, of its structures, the people who compose it? With all probability little, very little. And yet I believe that the Good News is sown, the grain is germinating. The Spirit is at work, he works in the depths ofthe heart of people. Let's be available so that he can act in us through prayer and the loving presence of all our brothers"

----------.--~~~~------

                   

                   

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.