The Catholic Leader - 7 May

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The Catholic Leader, May 7, 2017
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This is a testimony Fr Jacques
Mourad gave at a recent
event in Paris for Aid to the
Church in Need.
HOW did I – taken hostage by a
group of jihadists, imprisoned for
almost five months, frequently
threatened with beheading, and after
witnessing the abduction and im-
prisonment of 250 of my parishion-
ers – respond to the experience of
my liberation?
Was there any room for love in this experi-
ence?
In Karyatayn (Al-Qaryatayn), I had been
ministering to all the people since the
year 2000 and I was in charge of
the Syriac Catholic parish there,
belonging to the Homs diocese.
And it was from Karyatayn
that I was abducted.
On May 21, a group of
masked and armed men
invaded the monastery of
Mar Elian, which I was in
charge of, taking me hostage
together with Boutros, who
was then a postulant at the
monastery.
We were kept prisoner there in
the car in the middle of the desert for
four days, then they took us to Raqqa, where
we were imprisoned in a bathroom.
On the road to Raqqa … into the unknown,
a phrase came to me and stayed with me which
helped me to accept what was happening and to
abandon myself to the Lord: “I am journeying
towards freedom ...”
The presence of the Blessed Virgin, our
Mother, and the prayer of the Rosary were my
other spiritual weapons.
On the eighth day a man in black, his face
masked, came into our “cell”.
At the sight of him I was terrified and I
thought my last hour had come.
But instead, to my great surprise, he asked
my name and addressed me with their custom-
ary greeting: “Assalam aleïkum”, which means
“Peace be with you”.
He then engaged us in a long conversation, as
though he was trying to get to know us better.
And when I found the courage to ask him why
we were being kept prisoner, I was surprised by
his reply: “Look on it as a spiritual retreat”.
We remained imprisoned in that bathroom for
84 days.
Almost every day they came into my cell and
interrogated me about my faith.
I lived each day as though it was my last. But
I did not waver.
God granted me two things: silence and ami-
ability.
I was harangued, threatened several times with
beheading, subjected to a mock execution for
refusing to renounce my faith.
In those moments Our Lord’s words resonated
within me:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness…”
And in the midst of this situa-
tion I was also happy to be able
to concretely live these words
of Christ from St Matthew’s
Gospel: “Love your enemies,
bless those who curse you,
do good to those who hate
you and pray for those who
ill-treat and persecute you.”
On August 4, 2015, the
Islamic State took control of
Karyatayn and then the next
morning, at dawn, took hostage
a group of Christians, about 250
people, brought from a region close to
Palmyra.
Obviously, we didn’t know anything about
what was going on, since we had been cut off
from the world.
On August 11, a Saudi sheik came into our
cell.
He spoke to me, saying, “You are Baba
Jacques? Come with me! They’ve been battering
our ears talking about you!”
We drove through the desert for about four
hours.
When we arrived in a compound enclosed by a
huge iron gate, the Christians of Karyatayn were
around me, astonished to see me.
It was a moment of unspeakable suffering for
me, and for them an extraordinary moment of
Any room for love?
joy and pain.
Of joy because they never expected to see me
survive, and of pain because of the conditions in
which we had met again.
Twenty days later, on September 1, they
brought us back to Karyatayn, free again, but
forbidden to leave the town.
To put it another way, it was a return to life,
but not yet to liberty.
But already a return to life – what a miracle! I
could not help but marvel at it.
We were even allowed to celebrate our reli-
gious rites, on condition we did not advertise the
fact.
A few days later, when one of my parishioners
died of cancer, we went to the cemetery, close to
the monastery of Mar Elian.
It was only then that I discovered it had been
destroyed.
Strangely, I did not react.
Three days later, on September 9, the feast of
Mar Elian (St Julian of Edessa), I realised that
Mar Elian had sacrificed his monastery and his
tomb in order to save us.
On the evening of October 9, I sensed that the
time had come to leave.
And the next morning, with the help of a
young Muslim man, I was able to flee from
Karyatayn, despite the dangers it involved.
And here again the merciful hand of God and
the Virgin Mary protected and accompanied me.
Helped by this local Muslim man, I was able to
pass through a checkpoint controlled by the jihad-
ists, without them recognising me or seizing me.
It was on that day, October 10, 2015, on that
desert road that the word “freedom” really came
home to me once more.
This thirst for freedom is not mine alone. It is
that of all the Syrian people.
Many Western countries have opened their
borders to Syrian refugees and welcomed them.
Thousands of Syrians who have fled death
have taken refuge in these countries because
they long for life and yearn for liberty.
Nonetheless, I cannot close my eyes to the
contradictions we see in these countries at war.
On the way towards freedom we must abso-
lutely ask ourselves this crucial question that
Pontius Pilate addressed to Christ: “What is
truth?”
Having said that, he went out again to speak to
the Jews and declared to them, “I find no cause
for condemnation in him”.
Pilate represented the Roman Empire, a
symbol of the whole world which has decided to
kill Christ.
Nothing has changed.
How long will we continue to refuse to under-
stand the message of our God?
How much longer must our world go on being
governed by little groups who seek only their
own self-interest?
It is time to react against the fear of a third
world war.
The time has come for a revolution of peace,
against violence, against the manufacture of
armaments, against governments who constantly
find reasons for war throughout the world, but
above all in the Middle East.
Despite everything the humanitarian organisa-
tions are doing for the Syrian people, there are
still families living in terrible conditions outside
the refugee camps for lack of space.
They are not accepted there.
They are homeless, they have nothing.
God is not only asking us to be sensitive to the
material needs of the poor.
We are presented with a people who are
suffering, a wounded people who are bearing a
very, very heavy burden … who cry out with Je-
sus on the Cross: “My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?” – people who cry out with
David in Psalm 51: “misericordias domini …”.
This war must stop.
We want to return to our ruined homes.
We have the right to live, like everyone else in
the world …
We want to live.
ACN
Freed: Fr Jacques Mourad.
Photo: Aid to the Church in Need
This thirst
for freedom is
not mine alone. It is
that of all the
Syrian people.
Tragedy: An injured boy stands amid rubble outside his home in 2014 after airstrikes in Aleppo, Syria. Photo: CNS/Ali Mustafa, EPA