The Story of Christian and Mohamed
The true story of Christian de Chergé and Mohamed is not well known, but it is worth discovering. Let us remember the movie of God’s and men, which narrates the life of the Cistercian monks of the monastery of our Lady of Atlas, in Tibhirine (Algeria), from 1993 to his kidnapping and martyrdom:
"We have killed seven monks", said a statement from the GIA (Islamic armed group) on May 21, 1996. It was the end of a long kidnapping of two months and the beginning of an unsuspected fertility of the soil. Christian de chergé was the prior of that community. He had spent during his youth 18 months in Algeria as a lieutenant, managing a group of villages. There he created friendship ties with Mohamed, a police of the city.
One day, while the two friends walked and talked about prayer, Algerian nationalists wanted to put an end to the life of the French Lieutenant. At that moment, Mohamed came in and saved Christian's life. Two or three days later, Mohamed was found killed close to a well. Christian was moved by this event, which revealed to him how a Muslim can live the only commandment giving his life for love to the other. And wrote:
"In the blood of this friend I knew that my call to follow Christ should live it, sooner or later, in the country itself where I had been given the greatest test of love". Man of prayer and reconciliation, warm and smiling , pierced by the gift of hope, of a hope that sinks its roots in the God of mercy, Christian, just as he had done with him his friend Mohamed, embraced the Algerian people until the last moment to bring him to the face that longed.”
In one of his letters to a religious friend he expressed something that reveals his own inner attitude: " as long as there is a pain to share in the world, you will be there, companion of the night and of doubt, of vigil and tears ... You will always be that person regardless of age, ready to share everything. And if we ask you the reasons of hope that push you to act like this, you will take the crucified Jesus who descends from the cross and you will receive him in the grave of your arms, so that there, next to your chest, he rest, wakes up and relive in your flesh".
Christian de Chergé, the murdered monk, continues to shine with his writings and his testimony to God's seekers in today's world. (Jose Luis Navarro)
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