Born From the Gaze of God
Christophe Lebreton, Cistercian Publications, 2012, www.cistercianpublications.org
Born from the Gaze of God is the Journal of a Trappist martyr monk, Christophe Lebreton, one of seven Frenchmen that constituted the community of Our Lady of Atlas Abbey in Tibhirine. Algeria, a French colony, was granted independence by Charles DeGaulle in 1961 following World War II. A Muslim country of Berbers and Arabs, Algeria is the second largest country in Africa.
Christophe‘s Journal from 1963 - 1966 reflects his daily life, with his brother monks and their Muslim neighbors. It is literally addressed to God (Breath). Perhaps you saw the movie Of God and Men, an excellent presentation of the monks’ lives in Algeria in the midst of a very violent civil war. Included were terrorist attacks on the government of Algeria; anyone not in sympathy with the Islamic terrorists could be dispensed by a violent death. There were bloody reprisals by the “forces of order,” no less violent.
The seven monks were constantly aware that they could be murdered at any time. They were profoundly wedded to the people of Tibhirine –neighbors and farmers - a genuine fellowship. Some Muslim farmers even joined them for daily prayer. One of their group, Brother Luc, was a physician who treated anyone, regardless of their political affiliation, which made the monks even more vulnerable. The Papal Nuncio pleaded with the monks to abandon their monastery and join him in a safer environment in Algeria. After weighty discussions and intense prayer the community of seven unanimously decided to remain in Tibhirine.
There are two Prefaces to Christophe’s Journal, one by the retired Archbishop of Algiers, Henri Teisser, and one a Love Poem by Dom Armand Veillesix a Trappist Abbot from Belgium. Christophe’s Journal is a dialogue with God; he is a mystic and he lost me at times. His writing reflects the monks’ daily life and the dire events surrounding them. A quote from the Archbishop’s preface reflects his admiration for Christophe’s “…capacity of making the connection between concrete events and their spiritual references.” Dramatic events in 1994 and 1995 illustrate this. Christophe:
(10/11/94) To drink the blood of the Lamb places us in one camp: that of the victims … An innocent victim joined to you, our pascal Lamb. One would like to intervene, to stand in the breach and try to stop this daily massacre. It must be done by a truer, more total form of engagement in prayer … (8/23/95) I don’t think anyone among us is much concerned with his own life. This greatly clears the way before us as a community!
This requires profound prayer for himself and the community.
“There is a love of the Lord and people that is at the heart of his Journal. The whole of Algerian society and the Algerian Church were living under this threat,” Archbishop Veilleux.
I find the Journal lends itself to short readings, much to absorb. Christophe came from a very loving family and cultivated deep friendships with some Muslim neighbors, as well as his Trappist brothers. I offer a few
more quotations from his writing, better than my paraphrasing. It is Gospel living at a very deep level.
12/22/93 … The impossible resolution, yes, I have made it: received from You. Love obliges me: This is my body: given.
This is my blood: poured out. May it be done unto me according to your word, may your gesture pierce me through ... A resolution stronger than death.
12/31/93 … Brother Luc at the prayer of the faithful, ‘Lord, give us the grace to die without hatred in our heart.’ … and Brother Luc in 1/30/94 ‘At my moment of death, if it’s not violent, I ask you to read to me the parable of the Prodigal Son and then say the Jesus prayer. And then, if there is any, give me a glass of champagne to say goodbye to this world … Before tasting the new wine.’
5/8/94 at 2p.m., at the Ben Shnets center in the Kasbah, Henri Verges, a Marist brother, and Paule–Helene, a little Sister of the Assumption were assassinated. ‘No one has greater love than the one who lets go of his life for the sake of those he loves.’
06/14/94 You say to us, you say to me today, in this Algerian entre nous in which
enemies are practicing internecine slaughter: ‘Love your enemies, Pray for your enemies.’ l hear Silouan: ‘To pray is to give the blood of one’s own heart.’ And Father Pierre: ‘The most beautiful prayer that Jesus left us is the Cross.’ Silouan again: ‘The Lord taught me to love my enemies. Deprived of divine grace we cannot love our enemies, but the Holy Spirit teaches us to love … When you pray for your enemies, peace will come upon you.
7/22/94 Before Lauds Mohammed asks me for hoes to dig up the potatoes. With a great desire for the Word, I want to remember this, in connection with our work together in the gardens: ‘You know: it’s as if the same blood runs through us, irrigates us together.’ Thus, for him, blood speaks first of all of Life, of a shared common life.
8/19/94 Pardon and Peace from you, in the Breath: this comes to me at the foot of the Cross. Yesterday morning, in Medea, twelve bodies were thrown into the street for everybody to see; massacred, mutilated … That is the answer from the forces of law and order to those on the other side, after an attack on a police officer whose throat was cut …
8/21/94 ‘And you, do you want to go away?’ ... ‘To whom would we go?’ To be here in order to go to you. This is beyond a choice between different possibilities. We are not at the convergence of different roads, but before you, who are the Way that opens out. And I am caught up in the event: drawn by your freedom as Son as if by your inhaling breath.
To believe becomes the only locomotion that is worthwhile: going to You. A way that is almost obligatory but that does no violence at all to myself and invites me to keep on moving on the path, precisely on this way where your hand leads me a way opens up and at the same ‘time’ an impulse runs through me … I can back down or consent.
The Journal ends in March of 1996. The monks are kidnapped by terrorists and held for two months before being assassinated. They lived as a community of brothers and died as a community.
2016 is the 20th anniversary of the seven monks martyrdom.