Category Archives: Saints and Soldiers

From Christian Soldier to Christian

TEDGlobal 2009

emmanuel_jal-211x300In the mid-1980s, Emmanuel Jal was a seven year old Sudanese boy, living in a small village with his parents, aunts, uncles, and siblings. But as Sudan’s civil war moved closer—with the Islamic government seizing tribal lands for water, oil, and other resources—Jal’s family moved again and again, seeking peace. Then, on one terrible day, Jal was separated from his mother, and later learned she had been killed; his father Simon rose to become a powerful commander in the Christian Sudanese Liberation Army, fighting for the freedom of Sudan. Soon, Jal was conscripted into that army, one of 10,000 child soldiers, and fought through two separate civil wars over nearly a decade.

But, remarkably, Jal survived, and his life began to change when he was adopted by a British aid worker. He began the journey that would lead him to change his name and to music: recording and releasing his own album, which produced the number one hip-hop single in Kenya, and from there went on to perform with Moby, Bono, Peter Gabriel, and other international music stars.  Shocking, inspiring, and finally hopeful, War Child is a memoir by a unique young man, who is determined to tell his story and in so doing bring peace to his homeland.

from War Child: A Child’s Story

“I didn’t know what the war was for…but I went to my training and I wanted to kills as many Muslims and Arabs as possible. I wanted revenge for my family and revenge for my village. Luckily now things have changed because I came to discover the truth. What was actually killing us wasn’t the Muslims, wasn’t the Arabs. It was somebody sitting somewhere manipulating the system and using religion to get what they wanted to get out of us, which was the oil, the diamond, the gold and the land.” Emmanuel Jal.

Listen to his TED Talk here! Emmanuel Jal: The music of a war child | Video on TED.com

Music is My Weapon of Choice,” The Telegraph, Feb. 28, 2009

The documentary: War Child

war-child

 

Bl. Diego Luis de San Vitores, Oct. 6

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores (1627-1672) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary who founded the first Catholic church on the island of Guam. His parents attempted to persuade him to pursue a military career, but he instead chose to pursue his religious interests.

He didn’t carry any arms and refused to let his companions carry arms. He was martyred.

Bl. Diego Luis de San Vitores – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online

St. Domnina, October 4

St. Domina was arrested by soldiers along with her two daughters. Fearing they would be raped, they threw themselves into a river and drowned. To me they call to mind the ancient practice of using rape as a weapon of war, which continues today.

The Invisible War

How Did Rape Become a Weapon of War?

Abu Ghraib Abuse Photos Show Rape

Sexual Violence in the Global War on Terror

St. Domnina – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online

Bl. Alberto Marvelli, Oct. 5

Alberto

An avid bicycler, he used his bike to carry donations to the poor. During World War II, Alberto rescued those being deported by the Nazis to concentration camps by breaking open the locked rail cars to let the prisoners free. On October 5, 1946, while riding his bicycle, Alberto was struck and killed by an Army truck.

Blessed Alberto Marvelli

 

 

 

This is a wonderful video tribute to Blessed Alberto Marvielli set to the Cranberries’ song, “War Child.”

Alberto Marvelli – YouTube

▶ The Canticle of St. Francis

The Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi is October 4. Here is a link to a speech Pope Francis gave yesterday on the occasion.

“Let us respect creation, let us not be instruments of destruction! Let us respect each human being. May there be an end to armed conflicts which cover the earth with blood; may the clash of arms be silenced; and everywhere may hatred yield to love, injury to pardon, and discord to unity,” said Pope Francis.

I hope this song helps you to call into your heart the spirit of St. Francis!

St. Francis and the Sultan

[The Search for Martrydom] was the ultimate idea in the remarkable business of his expedition among the Saracens in Syria…His idea, of course, was to bring the Crusades in a double sense to their end; that is, to reach their conclusion and to achieve their purpose. Only he wished to do it by conversion and not by conquest; that is, by intellectual and not material means…It was, of course, simply that it was better to create Christians than to destroy Moslems…It was not absurd to suppose that this might be effected, without military force, by missionaries who were also martyrs. The Church had conquered Europe in that way and may yet conquer Africa and Asia in that way. But there was still another sense in which he was thinking of martyrdom not as a means to end but as an end in itself; in the sense that to him the supreme end was to come closer to the example of Christ.

…He made a dash for his Mediterranean enterprise something like a schoolboy running away to sea. In the first act of that attempt, he characteristically distinguished himself by becoming the Patron Saint of Stowaways.  He never thought of waiting for introductions or bargains or any of the considerable backing that he already had from rich and responsible people. He simply saw a boat and threw himself into it, as he threw himself into everything else.

…He arrived at the headquarters of the Crusade which was in front of the besieged city of Damietta, and went on in his rapid and solitary fashion to seek the headquarters of the Saracens. He succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Sultan; and it was at that interview that he evidently offered, and as some say proceeded, to fling himself into the fire, as a divine ordeal, defying the Moslem religious teachers to do the same. It is quite certain that he would have done so at a moment’s notice. Indeed, throwing himself into the fire was hardly more desperate, in any case, than throwing himself among the weapons and tools of torture of a horde of fanatical Mahomedans and asking them to renounce Mahomet. It is further said that Mahomedan muftis showed some coldness toward the proposed competition, and that one of them quietly withdrew while it was under discussion, which would also appear credible. There may be something in the story of the individual impression produced on the Sultan, which the narrator represents as a sort of secret conversion. There may be something in the suggestion that the holy man was unconsciously protected among half-barbarous orientals by the halo of sanctity that is supposed in such places to surround an idiot. There is probably as much or more in the more generous explanation of that graceful though capricious courtesy and compassion which mingled with wilder things in the stately Soldans of the type and tradition of Saladin. Finally, there is perhaps something in the suggestion that the tale of Saint Francis might be told as a sort of ironic tragedy and comedy called The Man Who Could Not Get Killed. Men liked him too much for himself to let him die for his faith; and the man was received instead of the message. But all these are only converging guesses at a great effort that is hard to judge because it broke off short like the beginning of a great bridge that might have united East and West, and remains one of the great might-have-beens of history.

Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume II, Saint Francis of Assisi

Francis the Fighter

High in the dark house of Assisi Francesco Bernardone slept and dreamed of arms. There came to him in the darkness a vision splendid with swords, patterned after the cross in the Crusading fashion, of spears and shields and helmets hung in a high armoury, all bearing the sacred sign. When he awoke he accepted the dream as a trumpet bidding him to the battlefield, and rushed out to take horse and arms. He delighted in all the exercises of chivalry; and was evidently an accomplished cavalier and fighting man by the tests of the tournament and the camp. He would doubtless at any time have preferred a Christian sort of chivalry; but it seems clear that he was also in a mood which thirsted for glory, though in him that glory would always have been identical with honour. He was not without some vision of that wreath of laurel which Caesar has left for all the Latins. As he rode out to war the great gate in the deep wall of Assisi resounded with his last boast, “I shall come back a great prince.”

Credit: Scrumpdillyicious.blogspot.com

Credit: Scrumpdillyicious.blogspot.com

A little way along his road his sickness rose again and threw him. It seems highly probable, in the light of his impetuous temper, that he had ridden away long before he was fit to move. And in the darkness of this second and far more desolating interruption, he seems to have had another dream in which a voice said to him, “You have mistaken the meaning of the vision. Return to your own town.” And Francis trailed back in his sickness to Assisi, a very dismal and disappointed and perhaps even derided figure, with nothing to do but to wait for what should happen next. It was his first descent into a dark ravine that is called the valley of humiliation, which seemed to him very rocky and desolate, but in which he was afterwards to find many flowers.

But he was not only disappointed and humiliated; he was also very much puzzled and bewildered. He still firmly believed that his two dreams must have meant something; and he could not imagine what they could possibly mean. It was while he was drifting, one may even say mooning, about the streets of Assisi and the fields outside the city wall, that an incident occurred to him which has not always been immediately connected with the business of the dreams, but which seems to me the obvious culmination of them. He was riding listlessly in some wayside place, apparently in the open country, when he saw a figure coming along the road towards him and halted; for he saw it was a leper. And he knew instantly that his courage was challenged, not as the world challenges, but as one would challenge who knew the secrets of the heart of man. What he saw advancing was not the banner and spears of Perugia, from which it never occurred to him to shrink; not the armies that fought for the crown of Sicily, of which he had always thought as a courageous man thinks of mere vulgar danger. Francis Bernadone saw his fear coming up the road towards him…

St. Francis of Assisi, Francis the Fighter, Collected works of G.K. Chesterton, Volume II

 

 

St. Nicetius Called Out Public Officials

October 1 is the Feast Day of St. Nicetius (513-566). According to Catholic.org, Nicetius was known for calling out public officials, which is why I’m combining this post with one about the protests happening at CUNY against David Patraeus. This is the kind of thing Nicetius would do:

While journeying to Trier to be consecrated, Nicetius did not hesitate to condemn the royal officials accompanying him when one evening these men released their horses into the wheat fields of the local peasants, ruining their crops. In response to Nicetius’ threat to excommunicate the perpetrators, the officers laughed at him, but he continued: “The king has drawn me, a poor abbot, from my quiet cloister, to set me over this people, and by God’s grace I will do my duty by them and protect them from wrong and robbery.” Nicetius then went after the horses himself to drive them out of the peasants’ fields. As bishop of Trier, Nicetius manifested great apostolic courage…in denouncing from the pulpit public officials guilty of grave evils. For a time he suffered banishment for condemning the crimes of King Clotaire I.

Wow. So I stumbled upon some information today about the protests happening against David Petraeus, who was originally going to be paid $200,000 to teach a three-hour seminar there once a week. Turns out he is not very welcome.

…a great many CUNY students’ families come from countries directly targeted by the death squads, military coups, drones, spying and mass bombing organized by the likes of Petraeus, “his man Steele,” and the U.S. military as a whole, now under the command of Obama who is pushing to open a new war front, this time in Syria.

via Interview: Students, Faculty Protest Presence of David Petraeus at CUNY Honors College | The Dissenter.

Here is a video of Petraeus walking away from CUNY, followed by angry protesters. What would St. Nicetius say?

Padre Pio Stopped American Bombers

Padre Pio and American Servicemen

Padre Pio and American Servicemen

General Bernardo Rosini of the United Air Command reported that:

“Each time that the pilots returned from their missions, they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back. Everyone was talking about these incredible stories. But since the episodes kept recurring, the Commanding General of USAF General Nathan F. Twining, who happened to be in Bari, decided to pilot himself a squadron of bombers to destroy a target near San Giovanni Rotondo. When he and his pilots were in the vicinity of the target, they saw the figure of a monk with upraised hands appear in the sky. The bombs got loose from the plains falling in open areas, and the planes made a sharp turn to return to base without the pilots intervening. Back on the ground, everybody asked everybody else about the happening and wanted to know who was that friar. The General was told about Padre Pio and decided to visit him with the pilots in that squadron. The pilots immediately recognized Padre Pio, and he told the general: ‘So you are the one that wanted to destroy everything.'” The general became a friend of Padre Pio.

Infallible Catholic, Padre Pio on Bilocation, April 23, 2012

The Feast Day of St. Pio of Pietrelcina is September 23. You can read more about the incident of the “flying monk” here:

Research provided by author Frank Rega about Padre Pio, The Examiner, May 9, 2011

 

 

St. Cadoc Refused Military Service

In adulthood Cadoc refused to take charge of his father’s army, “preferring to fight for Christ”. He founded his first monastery at Llancarfan in the Vale of Glamorgan, and from there he went to Ireland to study for three years. Returning to Wales, he studied with Bachan, a teacher of rhetoric from Italy. He then travelled to Scotland where he founded a monastery at Cambuslang. Back at Llancarfan, his influence helped it to grow into one of the chief monasteries in South Wales.

Catholic.Org

His Feast Day is September 25.