Of Gods and Men
It's a discussion for another day as to why those entrusted with
the delivery of news so stubbornly refuse to cover the very deadly war
being waged at this very moment against Christianity in the Middle
East. The aggressors are radical Islamists, the victims Christians,
especially those wearing the cloth. Every week another report detailing
another attack seeps through the wall of non-information, of men
condemned to death in Saudi Arabia for the crime of conversion, of
Catholic churches bombed in Baghdad on Christmas Day, of Coptic
congregations slaughtered in Egypt, and the like.
Sad and troubling to be sure, but it's over there...over there. Do
you have any recollection of the story fifteen years ago of the small
community of Trappist monks in Algeria kidnapped in a prisoner-exchange
plot, and then murdered? To the extent I was aware of the brutal story
it was something I quickly filed away in the memory banks under, "Oh,
dear." Nothing more.
French filmmaker Xavier Beauvais challenges us to remember. He has
delivered the hauntingly beautiful "Of Gods and Men," winner of the
Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. "Schindler's List" was
aimed at your heart; "Of Gods and Men" captures your soul.
The
movie tells the story of Brother Christian and his half-dozen fellow
monks, mostly elderly as so many monastic congregations are, living the
simplest of lives in impoverished and violent Algeria in 1996. Their
Trappist vows mandated a life providing basic medical needs to the
Muslim peasants in the village Tibhirine; of producing and marketing
simple produce like honey for their own sustenance; of prayer and song
in their little chapel; of contemplation and of silence.
But that world is shattered by Islamic terrorism. In the one and
only grisly scene, a few Croatians are repairing a local road when a
convoy of jeeps, with engines roaring and tires squealing, emerge. The
terrorists dismount, grab the foreigners, innocent and unarmed, and
viciously slit their throats.
The news reaches the monks. They know that as "infidels" they are
now marked men. They know the government, corrupt and murderous in its
own right, is equally threatening. If they stay it is only a matter of
time. They will be killed. The villagers plead for them to leave.
On Christmas Eve the monastery is assaulted by these killers. The
defenseless monks are ordered to surrender their medical supplies. But
Brother Christian refuses to do so, citing the need to provide it for
the children and the elderly. It is a war of nerves and the terrorist
leader blinks. He turns to leave but Brother Christian stops him and,
quoting from the Koran, admonishes him not to disturb the sanctity of
God's house on this holy night. The message resonates. Chagrined, the
Muslim terrorist apologizes.
The monks know they will return and this time there will be
finality. They meet to discuss their future. Initially the brothers are
divided; after much prayer, contemplation and consultation the
community embraces the will of God: it was their calling to minister to
these villagers and with these villagers they will remain. The
terrorists return. At gunpoint the monks are kidnapped. In the final
heart-breaking scene these holy men are silently led away, to their
execution.
There is a riveting exchange in Nearer My God, William F. Buckley
Jr.'s magnificent opus on his Catholic faith, wherein he attempts to
capture the essence of the monastic experience. He poses a series of
questions to Father Michael, a cloistered Benedictine monk in France,
the final one regarding the "manifest tendentiousness" of monastic
life. Father Michael's answer is prescient.
"Men who are drawn to be monks are radicals by temperament; there
are other ways to 'put on Christ,'" he explains. "The monk feels a huge
tug to go it the whole way, to climb to the very summit, and to
dedicate his life to that and that alone... I like to think of the
metaphor of a road winding its way up a mountain, encircling it as it
rises. The man on the road is conscious mostly of the never-ending
series of obstacles and difficulties, which change but little in
nature. Yet from time to time he can gaze out on the expanse below him
and judge... the distance he has travelled. The monk's life is a
continuous striving, a daily battle, and the prize, the summit of the
mountain, is Christ."
Brother Christian and his fellow martyrs reached the summit.
Perhaps it would be appropriate in this Lenten season to pray for all
men of the cloth, of all vocations, so many in such danger in a world
where evil rages, or just simply mocked by a secularist society that
rejects their faith. I reserve special intentions for Father Michael,
my brother Michael, who began his own ascent, and the daily battle,
thirty-two years ago.
