A very brief post, but all the more significant for that:
Last night in Komanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an all-night Eucharistic liturgy was interrupted by men armed with guns and machetes, believed to have been members of the so-called Allied Democratic Front, a branch of Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS or ISIL, before its operation largely shifted away from Iraq, Syria and the Levant to sub-Saharan Africa). The armed men are said to have killed as many as forty; at least twenty young persons, perhaps more, died there before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
BBC reported that a local priest had told the news agency Agence France-Presse: “We have at least 31 dead members of the Eucharistic Crusade movement, with six seriously injured. Some young people were kidnapped, we have no news of them.”
The episode during the life of St. Clare of Assisi in which she defended her sisters against the invading Saracens by holding aloft the Blessed Sacrament has been much depicted in art. Yet sometimes the followers of Christ glorify him by living and dying in solidarity with his meekness and the submission he displayed during the Passion. We remember St. Boniface chopping down Donar’s Oak but may forget (or never have known) how at the end he turned away from an evenly matched fight and surrendered himself to death with equanimity. Thomas á Becket, Oscar Romero were martyred at the altar.
We in the so-called First World can get so wrapped up in what amount to details of religion, in scandals, liturgical minutiae, fine points of dogma or ecclesial politics, as to miss the great and terrible workings of God in our very midst. Many have long accorded great importance to a dying person’s last words, as an enduring existential proclamation. But what an unbelievable honor to die kneeling in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, one’s abiding testimony spoken in the language of gesture, an act of faith and love. The Eucharistic Crusade in the DRC is an organization of children and young people – and now, of martyrs. Let us join our prayers for the wounded, the mourning, and especially the missing with the prayers that their slain fellows and loved ones offer for them in the glory of Heaven.
Photo: CC-BY-SA-4.0, Eucharistic Adoration, “willuconquer” own work, Creative Commons
Dr. Paul Chu is currently a philosophy instructor for CTState, the Connecticut Community College, and has previously taught philosophy in college, university, and seminary settings. He also served as a staff writer and editor for various national publications. He is co-founder of Sacred Beauty, a Private Association of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport dedicated to honoring the beauty and holiness of God through artistic and intellectual creativity founded in prayer, especially Eucharistic contemplation. He contributes regularly to https://questionsdisputedandotherwise.substack.com/.
V. J. Tarantino is co-founder of Sacred Beauty, a Private Association of the Faithful in the Diocese of Bridgeport. She has studied ancient and Medieval metaphysics and has devoted her adult life to the service of liturgy (study of liturgical texts and norms, the cultivation of sacred elocution, musical performance and composition, the beautification of sacred space, and the organization and direction of public Eucharistic Adoration) and to immersion in the writings of the Doctors of the Church and of recent Popes. Her writing can be found at https://questionsdisputedandotherwise.substack.com/
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