Friend of my final moment

I have to admit, when I heard Osama Bin Laden was killed, I was elated. I felt like doing the happy dance. I knew that wasn't the proper Christian response but I couldn't contain myself. Justice was finally served. The fact that is was on Divine Mercy Sunday and the day the now Blessed John Paul II was beatified made it seem that much more providential.  But the Catholic response to Bin Laden's demise was predictably tempered in saying that we should never rejoice in someones death no matter how evil. That no matter what, that person is a child of God who went very far astray and needs our mercy and forgiveness more than our jubilation. I thought, yeah, yeah, whatever. Don't spoil my moment of tasting the sweetness of revenge.
I wasn't about to dance on the streets though. I did try to temper myself. I did try to reflect. Of all things,  on Saturday, the night before Bin Laden's assassination, my husband and I saw Of Gods and Men. Sunday I spent the day reflecting on it, thinking how saintly these Atlas martyrs were. I read Fr. Christian's letter that he wrote two years before he was kidnapped and murdered along with 6 other monks. All this was fresh in my mind. I had some anger already toward the extremist who took the lives of innocent people and at the same time I saw how these Cistercian Monks handled the violence and combated it with pure Christian love. When Fr. Christian identified the body of one of the extremist who was responsible for the murder of hundreds of people, including some that were close to the priest, he made the sign of the cross and prayed over his dead body. The military officers looked on in astonishment and disgust. How could this priest show such mercy and sadness towards a wicked person who caused such upheaval and misery? And  yet, that's exactly what he did.
When reading his prophetic letter which he left for those to find after his death, he explains to his readers why they chose to stay in the village where they were clearly in danger of losing their lives. He did it out of love for the mostly Muslim people that the monastery served. It was a situation where Muslims and Christians were living side by side and caring for one another. These monks cared for the villagers and the villagers looked to them as an extended family. Fr. Christian wanted his readers to know this is what the Muslim world really is like. The extremists were not the norm. Sadly they are the loudest and most disruptive and bring terror to their own Muslim brothers and sisters. Toward the end of his letter he referred to his would be assassin as the friend of his final moment.
I mulled over these men's lives and their words and their final sacrifice. I thought about how they may have been very afraid knowing their likely fate. They could have left the village and move to a safer haven. But then again, Jesus could have also escaped his impending death. But love won out. Love conquered dread and fear. Love stood up to the bullies.
So as I reflected on Bin Laden's death,  I had a vision of him coming face to face with our Lord and discovering the lie he had been living and the horror of seeing what he rejected. I started to feel pity. Some would say, "Well, he would have killed you and your children."
 I know that. But he probably lost his eternal life. He probably is not in paradise. We have a chance. We take advantage of the graces that God gives us. Bin Laden rejected all that and is probably now eternally paying the price. It can't be undone. I'm not like Fr. Christian and the other brave monks. I'm often not able to rise above my human tendencies to revel in the death of Bin Laden. It takes me longer to surrender to the love of God and so I'm not completely free of my shackles of pride and mainly, I'm not free from my ongoing worldly fears. These men somehow found that freedom to love in the Christian manner. Loving to the point of willingly laying down their lives for their friends.
So go see Of Gods and Men. It is especially timely in the wake of Bin Laden's demise. When the temptation of rejoicing in the demise of another is too great, we can be reminded of these saintly men who let love rule the day. I close with Fr. Christian's letter.

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.