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Remove the violence from them... Remove the violence from us... Remove the violence from me

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Remove the violence from them... Remove the violence from us... Remove the violence from me

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In the black years of the 90s the brothers of Tibhirine (Algeria), although surrounded by violence, kept their hearts and prayer open to the tragic events happening in the rest of the world (Gulf war, Jugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda). They managed to find out how they could contribute to peace. We will experience during this periodof Lent with them up to Easter how to contribute now and wherever we are to Peace by joining the third world of Hope and by distilling in our everyday life the goodness and fraternal softness within its reach.

Translation: Marie Thomas-Guilloux

More on the Monks of Tibhirine: www.moines-tibhirine.org and on the collection Les écrits de Tibhirine: https://en.lecloitredetibhirine.org/

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Website of the Association for the writings of the 7 of the Atlas to make discover the writings of the monks of Tibhirine known by the film “Of men and gods” (2010), and beatified in 2018: bright pages to help us enter into a spirituality of encountering the other.

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They were six all in all and it was at night time. He had accepted to go out of the house because l didn’t want to talk to somebody with weapons in a house the vocation of which is Peace. We met outside, he seemed without weapons. We were face to face. He presented me with three demands and three times l could say no or not like that. He did say : « You haven’t got the choice. » « Yes l have » l answered back, not only because l was the guardian of my brothers but also the guardian of that brother in front of me. And l had to discover in him something else than what he had become. And this is what nearly happened because he gave up and made the effort to understand ».

(…) Afer our discussion in the night l told him : « we are preparing for the celebration of Christmas, for us it is the birth of the Prince of Peace and you just drop in with weapons ! ». « I am sorry, l didn’t know » he answered.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’incarnation continuée. Récollection de Carême 8.03.96. L’invincible espérance p. 309 »

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After the visit at Christmas (1993 of the Islamic Armed Group), l needed two to three weeks to come back from my own death. It takes no time to accept death, don’t worry, but to come back to the surface, it takes time. Later on l said to myself : » These guys, this bloke l had this quite stressed dialogue with, what sort of prayer can l do for him ? l can’t ask God : kill him. But l can ask : disarm him (remove his weapons from him ?). Then l wondered if l had the right to ask : disarm him, if l don’t start by asking him to remove violence from me and from the community. This is my daily prayer and l share it with you very openly.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, pp. 313-314.

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Murder is a reality present in our holy history. And holy history is still alive, it is the story we are experiencing today.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 304.

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If murder is forbidden, it is because, when one kills, one kills the image of God. In every man there is something eternal, beyond homicide.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême», 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, pp. 313-314.

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You won’t commit murder, this commandment falls on my brother and l must do everything l can to make him change his mind.

All the Algerians, l love them enough, to not want that one of them be his brother’s Caïn. But l already entrust the one, who in his badly enlighted liberty would become a murderer under the Father’s mercy. And if he attacks me, l would like to be able to say that he didn’t know what he was doing and give him mitigating circumstances.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, pp. 312-313.

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To get rid of all these tendencies we have in us to choose our camp, to rise up against each other, to distribute quality or horror prizes, as a community, we had this instinct, which l later found quite a rescue one, but it just turned up like that, to call mountaineers, those called terrorists, the brothers from the mountains, and the armed forces were the brothers from the plain. This is very practical on a telephone conversation. It’s a way to remain brothers.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 316.

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To not kill oneself : to wonder, if maybe today l love myself enough. Am l not destroying myself ?

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 316.

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To not kill time : do l respect God’s time limits enough ?

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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To not kill trust : when trust has disappeared, then the person dies.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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To not kill death : in other words to not make it ordinary ; death always means somebody has died. And to not put it aside, even our own death : my own death belongs to my life.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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To not kill the country in advance : it would be tempting to look at Algeria like at a corpse. Not yet ! to have for this country a lot of compassion and a lot of tenderness. It’s a big invalid, but we all are at the hospital.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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To not kill the Muslim : no Muslim and specially not a Muslim because he would belong to that Islam that would be hard ?

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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To not kill the Church, our Church: it can be done by small, murderous sentences.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 317.

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Peace is firstly a gift from God. It is given to us. Don’t let’s say it doesn’t exist. It just needs to appear.

Patience

Poorness

Presence

Prayer

Forgiveness

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, pp. 317-318.

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Strangely enough, Forgiveness is the first name given to God in the litany of the 99, « Ar Rahman, Ar Rahma » and Patience is the last of the 99, Es Sabour. God Himself is poor, God Himself is present, and God Himself is prayer. This the peace God gives. It is not the way it is given in the world.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Récollection de carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, p. 318.

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Thanks too for believing that « all will be well » ! Peace is like a little one who needs time to grow up… but he is there, given. Trust therefore and patience.

Brother Christian,
Note to Father Joseph Carmona, added to the end ot the newsletter, Epiphany 1996, Heureux ceux qui espèrent p. 484.

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… we have to help create a new face to the Church by going to the end of our deprivations … and our ageings.

Brother Christian,
Letter to P. Baudry, 22.03.1996, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 484.

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… trust is the infinitely noble name love takes when in this world FAITH and HOPE meet up to allow it to come to life… [...]

I have never forgotten the sponsoring of hope even if this link is experienced in silence. In the surge of your coming of age and on the threshold of your twentieth birthday this is the message we entrust your affection, the message of our life, the message of a people and its difficulty to live, its longings : justice and a responsible peace. Share all this around you.

Brother Christian,
Letter to Violaine, his goddaughter, Epiphany 1993, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 485

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(About Psalm 50). A broken and crushed heart is firstly a disarmed heart, surrendered, an open town, a poor bloodless heart dreaming to be watered by Love even risking to be plundered by men later. The Psalm resumes the complete lesson of the Bible : one reaches humility through the heart, it means one recognises one‘s own poorness, a frightening void, a constant failure… to Celebrate this Psalm means to come back to one’s own heart and as well to the heart of the Revelation, to a God knocking on the Rock to let the unknown Source spurt out. The Lord is near the broken hearts, he saves the downcast spirits. (Ps 33, 19)

Brother Christian,
Chapter of March 8, 1986, Dieu pour tout jour p. 107.

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May Peace given to all human beings disarm violences, confound every selfishness, and create justice and cooperation.

Brother Christian,
Homely for Whitsun, May 18, 1986, L’autre que nous attendons, p. 196.

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A wager over HAPPINESS versus a challenge of FEAR … It is not easy to give up the violence of fear in front of the violence of the agression or injustice… to look at one’s own fantasies with humour, because the happiness we believe in meets the disarmed victory of the cross, therefore of life over any possible death.

Brother Christian,
Homely for AllSaints’ Day, November 1, 1994, L’autre que nous attendons, p. 441.

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A wager over COMMUNION, against exclusions, against the challenge of « every man to himself » or of the radicalisation of the parties.

Brother Christian,
Homely for All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1994, L’autre que nous attendons, p. 441.

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A wager over MERCY, against the challenge of revenge, resentment, and good conscience as well.

Brother Christian,
Homely for All Saint’s Day, November 1, 1994, L’autre que nous attendons, p. 442.

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Prayer is an act of mission ; a word without violence, without pride or wish for power, in a big state of weakness. There, little by little, we are configurated to the Word, to the language of the Cross. There, we are open to the Encounter with all the friends of Peace, at the very place where Jesus and His Father meet as ONE in the Spirit… […]

Yes, we are here to serve somebodyelse’s interests. To serve Him at our expenses, there is no space here for a simple touristic visa … of an amateur or dilettante. We are workers. And in fact, we have to admit it ; we are « blessingly » paid : blessing upon blessing. Yes, in fact, our salary is constantly increasing according to the measure of our progress in poorness, abandon, and truth. In fact, we are happy. At the bottom of the prayer : we are infinitely rejoiced, stroked, comforted.

Brother Christophe,
Homely for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time C, July 5, 1992, la table et le pain pour les pauvres, p. 63.

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God helpless in front of us. A disarming sign : in front of a child, weapons and even threat are put down, otherwises the child would cry, and we don’t like that. One needs a praying heart to become softer. God is disarming. Nobody can take weapons in His name that can kill human beings. We want to repeat it in this night when God and man appear under the same face.

Brother Christian,
Homely for Midnight Mass (Christmas), December 25, 1995. L’autre que nous attendons, p. 484.

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We all long for PEACE to be for all of us, for the Presence of the disarmed Child to be an urging invitation to drop our weapons and to start building together. It looks like small steps are made in this direction.

Brother Christian,
Letter to Sr Jacqueline-Françoise, 10 .01.1996, Heureux ceux qui espèrent p. 479

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To a bigger extent, we had to choose what the events were imposing. One disarms the event by welcoming it, less like a constraint, an abuse or a violence than a gift of God having meaning for us… a meaning not always obvious, but able to be discovered if we are really disarmed.

Brother Christian,
Chapter of March 1995, Dieu pour tout jour, p. 526.

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It is still the same paschal adventure not surprised by the presence of the cross and talking about childbirth where an agony would only be seen, and acknowlodging the Presence in spite of thicker darkness. It should be noted that Islam conveys too something immuable still interrogating us. Comes to the surface the eternal part present in all relationships.

Brother Christian,
Chapter of March 28, 1995, Dieu pour tout jour p. 529.

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Tension towards a continuous prayer … when the due date seems near, it is then easier to long for it with the more constant company of the one awaiting us. Walk in my Presence. This doesn’t exclude the specific, free time of oration. Every day ; there again, the daily dimension seems bigger through the ordeal .

Brother Christian,
Chapter of November 18, 1995, Dieu pour tout jour, p. 534.

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In our history we have been able to create all sorts of mortifications, flogging etc… searching in them God’s glory. And we didn’t realise that the risk was great to reduce this glory to those means coming from us. And a risk too to not see any longer the « other » things, ALL these other things happening to us like to anybody else. In the way we welcome these things in the presence of the Father we remain in the world without belonging to it.

Brother Christian,
Chapter of February 6, 1996 Dieu pour tout jour, p. 543.

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And the mission of a presence, this is the monks’ mission in a « country of mission ». The entrance to this « universe of grace » in which efficiency doesn’t come through human means goes by the heart of a man who admits his POWERLESSNESS and who presents God with the human beings’ powerlessness.

Brother Christian,
Homely 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Ocober 19, 1980. L’autre que nous attendons, p. 26.

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To enter this experience of God’s Presence in order to transfigure each of our human actions.

Brother Christian,
Homely for St Joseph, March 19th 1982, L’autre que nous attendons, p. 60.

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For me dreaming of love as a fusion of me in Him, in fact l need a transfusion : his blood in my blood, his flesh in my flesh, his Heart in mine, real presence of a man walking in the Father’s presence.

Brother Christian,
Homely for Holy Thursday, April 13, 1995. L’autre que nous attendons, p. 455.

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I don’t know when and how it will end up. In the meantime, l do my task : to welcome the poor and the sick whilst waiting for the day and hour to shut my eyes to enter God’s house the door of which is open to the person knocking without any fear to be disturbing. It’s not about dying, but it is about dying triumphing every day over death and letting the divine presence breathe in us.

Brother Luc,
Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 127.

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To fear God, means living in his presence and this fear excludes any other fear. During the Holy Week, the texts remind us of Jesus being the suffering servant by obedience, and by obedience up to death. And yet, Jesus appears as the free man par excellence, free in everything. To love God in truth is therefore to accept death without any limits.

Brother Luc,
Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 129.

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Here as well the Lord does marvels. Pray that l may keep the eyes of my heart open and acknowledge His Presence, there. Quite often the prophet’s prayer is present to me : » Lord, let me marvel at You. »

Brother Michel,
Letter to Joseph Crand, Christmas 1987, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 167.

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Thanks to our life as searchers of Christ, we are witnesses of another radical poorness, the poorness of « the absence of Christ », and therefore of a solidarity in sin… in the same manner as we are the carriers of Christ’s presence, and therefore of a solidarity in joy and hope…We have been seized and we are trying to seize in turn (Phil,3).

Brother Christian,
Thoughts in his personal book note, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 331.

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To be able to experience the monastic welcome with our neighbours, our guests, up to the threshold of sharing, knowing enough about Islam to speak of our identity as monks, that’s to say men in search of the Absolute without any risk to be misunderstood. In an authentic love which could last to the end of the world, never mind, being able to remove any obstacle on our side to the journey of the Holy Spirit bringing light to faith and to the souls in Jesus Christ according to His own wish and way.

Brother Christian,
Letter to brother Vincent Desprez, 9.01.72, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 336.

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This is why we can’t oppose presence to God to presence to the world. It would mean forgetting that the Word of God manifested Himself in our human history so that the omnipresence to God, deep in our world, answers the omnipresence to God.

Brother Christian,
Chronicle of hope 8(25/01.76/B) 28.11.75 Heureux ceux qui espèrent p. 384.

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The “modality” of our presence in Algeria finds its kenotic inspiration here: “No one takes my life, I myself let go of it”:

This – us here –

is my body

where hatred finds what is stronger than itself: it is killed

Brother Christophe,
Born from the gaze of God. The Tibhirine Journal of a Martyr Monk (1993-1996), Cistercians publications 2014, p. 75.

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Ever since his meeting with Salah Attia, Christian prays: “Disarm them!” And little by little this exigency has penetrated us as well: Disarm me, disarm us.

For my part, I see that the areas where my violence manifests itself to the prejudice of someone or other, and of the whole community, are also the areas where my violence might little by little experience conversion: in the liturgy, where song and word want to be prayer; in work, where much energy is given and spent, in community life, by the exercise of charity. I discover too that Hope is given us in our situation as an experience of radical non-violence with regard to time: by accepting that time escapes our control and our vain projects, we can open ourselves to the seeming Impossibility of a greater Love.

Brother Christophe,
Born from the gaze of God. The Tibhirine Journal of a Martyr Monk (1993-1996), Cistercians publications 2014, p. 141.

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Going out, maybe one day, will be necessary

To tell the crucified world

Where our presence is to be found

Going out, changing the office from its very

Official place and taking the risk of an exposed prayer

Staying, defending the desert where freedom

Is incarnated, and quenched and receives the bread of life

Remaining hostages of the crucified Love

Standing up from inside, opponents of the Absolute,

Needing the Eternal

Brother Christophe,
Meditation « les moines du Royaume », Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 688.

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In front of these events, and the events of the world, what must we think ?

God doesn’t always remain deaf to our prayers, but He doesn’t change the run of things : « Things are what they are ». God gives us His Spirit : this Spirit is the ally of our freedom and gives us the strength to bear or modify these things if we can.

Brother Luc,
Letter to NB, 4.05.93, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 173.

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Our prayer, even as poor as it is, could well be shortened in this sentence : » Here we are Lord to make your will ». l like to say it for all of us and for each of us.

Brother Michel,
Letter to P. Etienne Baudry, January 1986, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 173.

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Don’t worry about us, brothers : after Marie, l beg your prayer so that we can all have the courage to take communion to the life of the Algerian people until the end, if that’s God’s will.

Brother Michel,
Letter to his brothers of Bellefontaine Abbey, 12.12.93, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 173.

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As Father de Foucauld did, but according to our Cistercian tradition, l am going to imitate the hidden life of Jesus, l am going to experience the Gospel on this African ground, l am going to be a permanent of Jesus’ prayer, poor, silent, servant among my Muslim brothers.

Brother Bruno,
Commitment during his solemn profession, 21.01.1990, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 244.

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…l had to wait until the year 76 !!! to understand better how the personal prayer of the heart, was very important, by « touching » you, and essential too ; to understand too how it germinated in the heart of your prayer together (praying the Psalms and celebrating the Eucharist) : and at the same time how your life of prayer together leads you to live the other hours of the day and even of the night (even when you are asleep !) in a relationship of love to God and your human brothers

Brother Célestin,
Letter to the brothers of the Noviciate of Bellefontaine, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 273.

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Within a vocation for prayer there is some sort of efficiency hard to undersand in our world of immediate output : eternity being the scale to understand the logic of certain calls from the Lord…

Brother Christian,
Letter to his father, 1.05.1969, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 319.

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I need to repeat again and again, « Master, teach me… » It is true, we don’t know how to pray properly. The Spirit KNOWS, and HE himself and this is ineffable. And when l accept to give Him my silence only, l know more and more that something is happening and that l am entering a symphony.

Brother Christian,
« Maison de prière », 8.12.1978, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 418.

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Do we pray enough, everywhere, without frontiers, for one another ? Saint Paul in the epistle to the Romans does say : » In the days of ordeal, hold on, pray with perseverance. » We can survive here only if we pray. And praying, precisely, by acknowledging our violence, our prejudices and rejection.

Brother Christian,
« L’Eglise, c’est l’Incarnation continuée. Recollection de Carême », 8.03.96, L’invincible espérance, pp. 312-313.

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Prayer : l feel called to it, Christ-bearer and l believe that one day l will be totally and thoroughly overwhelmed by it, but l haven’t gone so far. One shouldn’t hurry up. It’s a free gift from God to which l want to prepare myself by being faithful daily and simply to the things of life. Life together : l try to be brother, to be loved and to love – then friendship.

Brother Christophe,
Presentation text to his brothers in Tamié 29.08/1979, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 575

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« l love you » : this is my childhood secret, this is my prayer as a brother and it’s my daily poorness.

Brother Christophe,
Talk to the professional school in Troyes, 22.04.1982, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 585.

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Service of the monk : pray and cry for the whole world

Thanks to the monks prayer never stops on the earth and there

their usefulness is to be found for the world. The world is held together thanks to prayer.

Brother Christophe,
Journal, 8.05.1989, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 624.

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In order to make a truly happy year, we welcome with you this word of life from our sister Odette (at the meeting of Ribât of All Saints’ Day, 1994) : « the required fidelity is the fidelity to the present moment. God gives us only that moment, to experience forgiveness, love and PEACE ».

Community of Our Lady of the Atlas,
Newsletter, Christmas 1995, Heureux ceux qui espèrent, p. 748.

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When your Body challenges my life,

When your Blood sets fire to it

My heart is shown on my face

Brother Christophe