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Since you have asked me, as Archbishop of Algiers, to deliver the homily at this mass in remembrance of our seven brother monks during your Chapter, I think I must focus our meditation on the place the monastery held in the life of our local Church. Tibhirine was for us an icon of our vocation as Christians seeking God in the land of Algeria, that is to say in Muslim land.

To express, before your assembly, this exceptional link which has been established during long years, between the Monastery of Atlas and our Church of Algeria, I will take as my point of departure the "presentation of the monastery to guests", drawn up by Christian in collaboration with the community, and by which, moreover, opens the book, "Seven lives for God and for Algeria".⁽¹⁾

"Men" says this text, "continue to give themselves here - that is to say, at Tibhirine - with a heart that is free and submissive to the humble and hidden service of the Utter Greatness and the Utter Charity of God, in the praise of the Hours, the work of their hands and the total sharing of life in community, according to the rule of Saint Benedict, and the spirit and constitutions of the Order of Cîteaux".

Let us note in passing that the main words of this presentation were chosen with sensitivity to express the Christian Mystery and also take into account spiritual harmonies proper to the Muslims : "with a free and submissive heart"..."the Utter Greatness and Utter Charity of God". But we shall return later to this dimension of life at Tibhirine, too important to be merely mentioned in passing.

A true monastery to uphold our identity as Christians in diaspora.

It was first of all a community of contemplative life with which the priests, religious men and women, and lay people of our Church went to be united at Tibhirine. We are a very small Church. We all know one another. Nearly all of us had a personal relationship with the monastery or with one or other of the Fathers. 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 permantly in the diocese had a personal bond with the monastery.

We were united with Tibhirine first of all because it was a true monastery, a true community of prayer, working with their hands and offering their guests the Gospel values radically lived in the monastic life. Living in a society whose citizens are all Muslims and where manifestations of Christianity would be out of place, we needed these strong times. Symbolically, the only bell that still rang in Algeria was that of Tibhirine. And now that has been silenced.

We needed this spiritual place from which radiated all the richness of the monastic life which its nuances born of filial adoration, fraternal welcome, openness to all, trusting simplicity, respect for others. I knew, in Egypt, a comparable radiation, exercised by the monasteries of Wadi Natroun on the coptic communities of Cairo and the whole delta, but at Tibhirine there was more. This was not merely a monastery for the Christians in peril of their ecclesial life, but for disciples of Jesus seeking out their non-Christian brothers. Here is another dimension of Tibhirine of which we must now speak.

A monastery, sacrament of our mission

What was peculiar to Notre Dame de l'Atlas compared with other Cistercian monasteries was this engagement of the whole community in the very mission of our Church. Of course, this engagement was lived in the monastic mode, but profoundly bound up with the specific witness which is ours in a Muslim country. The monastery was the contemplative community of a local Church whose vocation is to be without frontiers, the local Church of a Muslim people and of a society of which Islam is the traditional point of reference.

The community of Tibhirine lived this in its manner of openness to its Muslim environment. In prayer always carefully prepared, enlightened by counsels or intentions so rich in suggestion, the liturgy of the monastery took on the whole life of the country with its religious and cultural values, its battles, its lacerations and its hopes. The hospitality at the monastery was equally open to everyone, each according to their need, the Christian for the Eucharist, the Muslim for spiritual sharing, the poor to have their needs attended to, the sick to be cured.

Let us return, in order to understand it, to the document of presentation of the monastery. After the introduction of its foundation in the Cistercian monastic life, the text continues : "Guests of the almost entirely Muslim Algerian people, these brothers would like to contribute to witnessing that peace among peoples is a gift of God given to men everywhere and at all times, and that it is up to believers, here and now, to manifest this inalienable gift especially by the quality of their mutual respect and support which requires a healthy and fruitful spiritual emulation.

On behalf of the praying people of Islam, they profess to celebrate this communion day and night, developing and welcoming untiringly the signs, as perpetual beggars of love, during their whole life, please God, in the enclosure of the monastery, dedicated to the patronage of Mary, mother of Jesus, under the title of "Notre Dame de l'Atlas". (p.24)

And now we have the second reason each of us had to unite ourselves with the community of Notre Dame de l'Atlas. In participating in the life of prayer of the community, in profiting by its spiritual welcome, we join ourselves, certainly, to the Gospel values lived radically, as in every monastic community, but we were above all nourished in our own vocation, in our specific mission as the Church in a Muslim country, open to the values of its spiritual tradition, offering gestures of solidarity and respect in our daily relations with men and women of another religious community.

This is precisely how the monks lived, not only through the service of the dispensary which Brother Luc ran, but also through the daily collaboration of Christophe, Paul and MIchel with the local people associated in the garden work, through the relations of the porter, Fr. Amédée, with the villagers, young and old, boys and girls who rang the bell at the small door all day long, through the hospitality in the guest-house of Célestin, Christian and Christophe, through the errands of Jean-Pierre to the nearby town, since, according to the terms of the presentation of the monastery, this was "a place of prayer and spiritual refreshment open to all whenever one came seeking an atmosphere of silence and recollection, which would light up the journey of a man or woman on the path of life..." (p.25)

The sacrifice to be accepted with them

And so this is the sacrifice God has asked of us through the immolation of our brothers. This spiritual place where we found refreshment as well as our Christian identity and our mission in Islam territory, has been destroyed by criminal violence.

Yet, despite our suffering, how could we fail to unite ourselves with the motivations which animated our brother monks since December 1993, after the first visit of an armed group to the monastery, when they chose to remain in spite of the risks they were running ? I was with them when they took this decision, consciously, after a community discernment, but also each one individually. How could they abandon the people whom God had sent them to save, and also, their community life ? How could they, who celebrated the sacrifice of Christ every day of their life, refuse to take the risk of loving unto death ?

Already on 14 December 1993, meditating on the assassination of the twelve Croatians, Fr. Christian wrote :"No-one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (Jn. 15:13). Better do it in advance, and for everyone, as Jesus did. In such a way that the one who believes he is putting you to death will not take your life from you; unknown to him, this gift has already been consented to, to him as to others". (p.135) A meditation which Christian had already committed to his Testament drawn up some months earlier : "If it should happen one day - and it could be today - that I become a victim of the terrorism... I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country". (p.210)

Thus, our brother monks with whom we were united - as we have already said - at the same time the heart of our Christian identity and a monastic expression of our common mission in Muslim territory, also walked further than we on the path of a love which accepts all risks, but which forms part of the vocation of our whole Church and of each one of us.

With you, with their families, with their neighbours of Tibhirine, with many men and women of good will in Algeria, in Morocco, in France and elsewhere, we are deprived of their presence, of their welcome, of their support, but with you, with Amédée and Jean-Pierre, with the community at Fes and with all the Friends of the monastery we must offer their sacrifice and consent to it.

None of us, in our Church in Algeria, can imagine how they could have gone, leaving the place of their spiritual solidarity to save their lives, even though each one of us had so hoped before their abduction, and still more after it, that the disarmed sincerity of their offering of life would disarm the very ones who had abducted them, as Christian himself the meeting of the Ribât on the eve of the abduction : "If one offers oneself unarmed and sees that the other is capable of allowing himself to be disarmed, this will make violence improbable". (Rîbat no. 24). And in fidelity to Christian and to the Gospel, despite the violence of which they were victims, we still believe in the efficacy of this disarmed fraternity, an evangelical efficacy belonging to the Paschal Mystery.

Forty days after their sacrifice, came that of Mgr. CLAVERIE, bishop of Oran, who had written in the same vein : "We have formed with the Algerians relations which nothing, even death, can destroy. In this we are disciples of Jesus Christ, and that is everything".⁽²⁾

After such a reminder, there remains only one question, which is this : who will receive the vocation to inherit, with the faithful community of Fes, the spiritual and missionary bequest of our brothers of Notre Dame de l'Atlas ? Our Church is waiting for the brothers God will send. She needs them in order to live. The people of Tibhirine are awaiting their return and guarding the monastery, which is, nevertheless, left empty in an isolated region. Many Algerians, who have seen, as we have, in Christian's Testament and the sacrifice of our brothers, a sign from God, are awaiting this sign of trust and hope. Who will give it henceforth ?

1. Bruno CHENU, Sept vies pour Dieu et l'Algérie, textes recueillis et présentés par B. CHENU, Centurion, 1996, p. 23-24.

2. Pierre CLAVERIE, Lettres et Messages d'Algérie, Karthala, 1996, p. 172.

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