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Today marks the 8-year anniversary of the tragic homicide of Father Jacques Hamel, a French Catholic priest killed by two Islamic terrorists whereas celebrating Mass in a church within the small city of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, a suburb of Rouen in France. According to eyewitness accounts, Hamel’s final phrases earlier than getting his throat slashed had been “Va-t’en, Satan,” that means in English “Get away, Satan.”
Hamel is broadly considered Europe’s first 21st century martyr. His story is compelling for numerous causes, however maybe the strongest being that the assault on Hamel is symbolic of the multitudinous, rising, and brutal assaults suffered by the Catholic Church over the previous a number of a long time.
It’s a harsh indisputable fact that Catholics of this age face a very virulent hatred. Across the globe, Catholic church buildings are being burned, spiritual statues are being desecrated, laity are being threatened, and clergymen are being kidnapped, tortured, and killed. I’m not speaking concerning the occasions of twond century Christians; I’m speaking about immediately.
Hamel was born on November 30, 1930, within the commune of Darnetal in Normandy, France’s northern area. At the time of his demise, he was serving as a parish priest within the Archdiocese of Rouen. On the morning of July 26, 2016, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq, slaughtered Hamel earlier than being shot dead by police. Both males had been 19 years previous.
Why are Catholic clergymen and church buildings so weak? What is on the root of their loathing? The Catholic author Joseph Massey, in his July 11, 2024, Twitter/X publish, solutions these questions:
Western civilization is being ransacked by barbarians, and the church buildings are all the time the very first thing to go. They need us demoralized and reduce off from the true supply of our power: God Almighty.
Massey is right. Catholic church buildings are targets exactly as a result of it’s in these church buildings that our sacraments reside.
The finish results of church assaults is devastating. Recently, a information outlet printed a map of France upon which small crimson icons had been pinned to mark the areas of Catholic church buildings that had been set on fireplace, vandalized, or attacked. The map was a sea of ominous scarlet badges. One might not see France; it was fully blotted out.
In her May 4, 2021, article entitled “Why France is dropping one spiritual constructing each two weeks,” Salène Tadié, the Europe Correspondent for the National Catholic Register, writes that “in line with the newest figures from France’s central felony intelligence unit, 877 assaults on Catholic locations of worship had been recorded throughout the nation in 2018 alone.” This determine is sort of unfathomable, and—dreadfully—it rises with each passing 12 months.
Tadié notes that ever since Frankish King Clovis I embraced Catholicism in 496 A.D., France has been referred to as “the eldest daughter of the Church.” This daughter boasts hundreds of Catholic buildings all through the nation. Each constructing is a valuable deposit of Frankish heritage, and every has a story to inform.
Tadié tells one story of the 16th century Church of SaintPierre in Romilly-la-Puthenaye, Normandy. According to Tadié, a fireplace came about at this church on April 15, 2021, precisely two years after the blaze that ravaged the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. The Saint-Pierre fireplace was deemed unintended. However, as with the Notre-Dame blaze, robust suspicions of vandalism linger.
Certainly, church buildings are targets of those that search to destroy the Catholic religion. But it may be argued that the prime goal is the Eucharist.
Catholics consider that their true supply of power—God Almighty—exists within the Eucharist. We proclaim that the Eucharist is really the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Risen Christ. In Communion, Christ is fully and totally current. It is a Mystery and, admittedly, a very difficult one. But it’s nonetheless true.
There exist innumerable affirmations of this reality within the 2000+ historical past of the Catholic Church, however one significantly persuasive and compelling instance may be discovered within the 8th century miracle of Lanciano during which the Eucharistic Host, in the mean time of consecration, changed into human flesh and blood. That Host survives intact to today. Such incontrovertible proof of the Living Christ is, in fact, anathema to the darkish enemies of Catholicism.
Satan’s minions know this: the Catholic priest alone has the facility, via the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit within the celebration of Mass, to show atypical bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. It isn’t any shock, then, that those that abhor Catholicism would search to obliterate clergymen.
By all accounts, Father Jacques Hamel had an ardent ardour for the Eucharist. This ardour is fantastically depicted within the icon of Hamel pictured right here. In this inventive rendering, the priest’s neck and palms are bloodied: a reminder of his heinous homicide. Hamel is displayed holding three white roses—a memory of the Holy Trinity and a illustration of the purity and virginity that mark his priestly vow of celibacy. He additionally cradles in his arms 5 crimson roses, (the flower Hamel reportedly beloved), and that crimson brings to thoughts the colour of martyrs.
At the picture’s middle, positioned immediately below the priest’s saintly golden halo, is the Eucharistic Host—held firmly, reverently, and piously in Hamel’s blessed palms. The Host is imprinted with a cross. The Eucharist, just like the halo, is completely luminous. It is full of mild, and it delivers mild. It is the fact of Christ’s promise in John 8:12, “I’m the sunshine of the world. Whoever follows me won’t stroll in darkness, however could have the sunshine of life.”
There is little question that, in his a few years of priestly ministry, Father Jacques Hamel was properly acquainted with the forces of darkness and sin that always search to extinguish Jesus’ mild.
Surely, Hamel was well-versed with Saint Paul’s writing in Ephesians 6:12, “For we wrestle not in opposition to flesh and blood, however in opposition to principalities, in opposition to powers, in opposition to the rulers of the darkness of this world, in opposition to religious wickedness in excessive locations.” Hamel’s demise underscores the undeniable fact that mankind is engaged in a fierce religious warfare. Indeed, for each Catholic residing in these troubled occasions, the battle between mild and darkness, good and evil, is abundantly clear—politically, culturally, socially, and psychologically now we have reduce ourselves off from God. In this catastrophic detachment now we have severed ourselves from grace. It is simply via a loyal return to the sacraments, most particularly the Eucharist, that we are going to be saved.
In considering the battle on Catholicism, there may be one factor we should keep in mind. If we, as Catholics, actually search restore, conversion, renewal, and redemption, we should look first to the reparation of our personal hearts. The complete world’s sanctification begins there.
The battle that rages, for each our souls and our Church, is certainly fierce. All Catholics are beckoned to serve. Some will, like Hamel, even change into martyrs for the Faith. Ultimately, we’re every known as, in each second of on daily basis, to utter from the depths of our hearts Hamel’s devoted and brave phrases: “Va-t’en, Satan.”
Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash
(2018). Père Jacques Hamel [photo]. Retrieved from Wikipedia.
