To beg forgiveness of God


A radical group approaches the French government and tries to make an even exchange with hostages. They’ve taken hostage seven Trappist monks in Algeria and wish to exchange them for hostages the French have in their prison. 

The French will not agree to this exchange and the radical group has threatened to execute the Trappist monks. Ultimately, they carry out their threat. 

One of the monks had a premonition two years before the awful event that he would be killed. He wrote a letter to his mother with instructions that it should be opened only after his death. It read in part: “If it should happen one day – and it could be today – that I become a victim of the terrorism that now seems to encompass all the foreigners in Algeria…I would like, when the time comes, to have a space of clearness that would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down…For this life lost, I give thanks to God. 

In this “thank you,” which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, my last-minute friend who will not have known what you are doing…I commend you to the God whos face I see in yours. And may we find each other, happy, ‘good thieves’ in paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.”

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