On July 5, 2023, Pope Francis created the Commission of New Martyrs – Witnesses of the Faith, charged with counting all Christians who died for faith in Jesus Christ, in light of the 2025 Jubilee. In this context, Vatican News collected the testimony of Archbishop Jacques Murad, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Homs, Hama, and Al-Nabek.
Kidnapped in 2015 in Syria and held by the jihadists of the Islamic State for 5 months before he managed to escape, Bishop Jacques Murad, Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Homs, Hama and Al-Nabek, was close to martyrdom. His captors threatened him, “Go back, or we will cut off your head.” This sentence, issued as a last warning, placed him – who was still a priest at the time – before his ordination vows. “I was exactly in this situation – he recalls – either to carry on carrying the cross to death with Christ for the love of the Church and the salvation of the world, or to surrender but thus also give up my vocation.”
He understood that he would continue to bear the cross, “but not only to bear the cross, but also to think of my captors,” says the archbishop and adds: “The gift I have received from this experience is to look at these jihadist people, with a prayerful spirit, to ask God To enlighten their hearts, to guide them, not for my sake, but for their salvation and for peace in our world.” And this renewed full confidence in God “set me free from all fears.” “When you face death face to face, there is a certain feeling of fear that permeates your soul. Every time I felt that fear I would pray the Rosary, and the fear would turn into courage.”
Today I consider this experience a blessing, a blessing that began on the eighth day, shortly before sunset.” Bishop Murad tells that at the end of his first week as a hostage he received a visit from the governor of Raqqa, without knowing that the man in front of him was the head of the Islamic State in Syria. And when I asked him: “Why are we prisoners, and what did we do wrong to be captured?”, the Islamic leader replied, “Consider this period as a period of spiritual solitude.” His answer turned the rest of my life upside down, ”says the archbishop and admits that he had never expected such a response. From an extremist leader at the head of one of the bloodiest groups, from an enemy!, “Even if there are no enemies for a disciple of Christ, but if we have enemies we must love them.” Bishop Murad continues his meditation: “How can you love an enemy who wants to kill you, when you want to kill him? This is the secret of Christ’s love, which appeared clearly when he said on the cross, “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.” As for Bishop Jacques Murad’s escape, he was in The fifth month of his detention, with the help of a young Muslim who, along with about fifteen others, organized the escape of dozens of hostages.In this context, the bishop says, “God wanted to save me in this world so that I could continue to serve and testify to the important principle of the Gospel: If you want peace, start by opening your heart”.
A year before his abduction in Homs, Dutch Jesuit priest Frans van der Lucht was assassinated in the garden of his monastery. In 2015, Father Jacques Murad knew very well what he would face with his jihadist jailers, and he said, “Father France was for me and all Syrians an example of fidelity to his Lord Jesus Christ. He devoted his life to loving Syria and the Syrian people.” And his example, Bishop Murad continued, saying that he is the example of the incarnate Christ who carries for all the message of the Father’s love, “and true salvation does not come except through love and self-sacrifice.” On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the death of another Jesuit priest, Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, of whom there has been no news since 2013, a Divine Liturgy was held in Rome and Bishop Jacques Mourad, who lived with Father Dall’Oglio for nearly 30 years, attended the ceremony. The two men rolled up their sleeves and restored Mar Musa Monastery together. They have known each other since 1986, and Bishop Murad says, “I knew Father Paolo as I knew myself and loved him as I loved myself. For me, he is a living martyr. He is truly a living martyr, whether he was dead or still alive.”
“A martyr is someone who always lives in the memory of the Church, in the heart of the Church and in the heart of God’s people,” explains the archbishop. Father Paolo, Bishop Murad continued, has really helped the lives of many people. “People were coming from everywhere” to meet him. “If you put together the letters, which he received or sent, you could produce an encyclopedia. He was always present to all, to the young as to the old, to the ignorant as to the wise, to the believer as to anyone else.”
I can testify that prayer is the only thing that has given meaning to my imprisonment, and to my daily life.” For Monsignor Murat, being a prisoner is the worst thing that can happen to man created in the image of God, “who was created free, free to think, free to speak, and free to move.” He added, “God has given us this gift,” and imprisoning a person is “an act that contradicts God’s will in His creation.” In this context, he stresses that “the only practice that helps a person to live this basic freedom is prayer, because it is what allows us to We get out of ourselves in order to be with God and to live with the one we love.” Bishop Murad concluded that, paradoxically, this period of imprisonment constituted “the most fertile time in my spiritual life, and in my relationship with God and with the Virgin Mary.”
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2023-08-11 08:45:42
