5/23/2013 – Thursday of 7th week of Ordinary Time – Psalm 1

      On this date in the year 1996, an Islamic fundamentalist group announced that it had killed a group of 7 French Trappist monks that had been kidnapped two months earlier from their monastery in Tibhirine, Algeria.  This Islamic group had requested the release of one of this group’s founding leaders in order for it to let the monks go free. Algeria was in the chaos of a violent civil war during this era. 

         One might ask what a group of French Catholic Trappist monks were doing in a Muslim country in northern Africa in the midst of a civil war.  Algeria had once been a French colony, but it gained independence in 1962.  Many Church groups remained in the country to do good works such as the operation of schools, hospitals, and nursing homes, and to also minister to the Christians in that country and to be witnesses of our Catholic faith in that society.  Prayer has always been an important part of the Muslim faith, as believers in Islam see prayer as a way to show humility and gratitude to our Creator.  French monks arrived in the 19^th century in Algeria in order to minister to the people there by the example of their prayerful lives.  This particular group of monks were a very integral part of their community – they reached out to the people in many ways and prayed together with them as well.  Even though they were warned many times to leave in the midst of the civil war by both the Algerian and French governments, the monks’ strong relationship with the community and their calling to their holy vocation called out to them, and they decided to stay, no matter what the cost.

         The psalmist declares: “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.”  Blessed are those who do not walk the way of sinners, but rather take delight in the Lord and in his laws.   The Trappist monks of Tibhirine call out to us today in their witness of faith, in the hope that they placed in the Lord.  

          There is a movie entitled "Of God and Men" made several years ago about the Monks of Tibhirine.  It is in French with subtitles.  I highly recommend it.