The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep...This Tuesday marks the
1st Anniversary of the killing of Fr Rageed Ganni and three sub-deacons of the Chaldean Church in Iraq after the celebration of the Eucharist at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul. The news came through to Rome on the evening of that Trinity Sunday, and I'll never forget being called over by an acquaintance to receive a phone-call for me on her mobile phone. At first I didn't understand... Ragheed shot? How seriously was he wounded? 'No, no,' I was told. 'He's dead. They've killed him.' I was attending a concert of sacred music when the news came through and had just had time to pass the news on to a few of Ragheed's friends before it started. Knowledge of the tragedy quietly percolated amongst Ragheed's friends as the choir got into place. Their first piece was a
Te Deum - evoking memories of similar
Te Deums sung in Rome as news reached the city of martyrdoms in the post-reformation period.
Those who knew Ragheed will remember his high spirits, his infectious laugh, and, above all his love for his people and his Church. There was very little nonsense with Ragheed - he had been called and he would serve his people without making a fuss about it. His very matter-of-factness may have made it difficult for us to understand what it was that he was getting in to as he returned to Iraq after his studies had ended and conflict was well underway in that unfortunate country. News filtered through of his church being attacked, of his sister being injured. He made his way back to Italy for some few short visits, and we noted how pale and thin he had become. Invited to speak at an Italian Eucharistic Congress in 2005, he said:
There are days when I feel frail and full of fear. But when, holding the Eucharist, I say ‘Behold the Lamb of God Behold, who takes away the sin of the world’, I feel His strength in me. When I hold the Host in my hands, it is really He who is holding me and all of us, challenging the terrorists and keeping us united in His boundless love.
Some few months before his killing, he was briefly back in Rome again, and presided at Vespers for us at the Pontifical Irish College. He made an impassioned appeal that the crucified Church in Iraq not be forgotten. He told us what things were like on the ground. He spoke of a gun and rocket attack near to his church whilst he was
celebrating First Holy Communion for the children of his parish. The children were terrified, of course, but he calmed them down by explaining that the noises were fireworks marking their First Holy Communion, and kept them calm until the danger passed. He had the heart of a shepherd and always put his flock first.
In the year since his killing, little seems to have changed for the Christians of Iraq. To the death-toll, to the roll of honour has been added Fr Ragheed's Archbishop
Paulos Faraj Rahho and his companions. As a sign of the Holy Father's closeness and affection for the Church in Iraq, the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans,
Emmanuel III Delly has been made a Cardinal. The red of the Cardinal's robes symbolises willingness to shed blood for Christ. For Christians in Iraq, that's not an empty symbol.
Martyrdom challenges our utilitarian and superficial understanding of what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be part of the Church. Our regular complaints and dissatisfaction with ourselves, our neighbours, and our brothers and sisters both inside and outside the Church, mean so little when we consider those who have shed their blood for the faith. I am humbled by Ragheed. I am humbled to have known a martyr. It is a struggle to reconcile my outrage at those who slaughtered him, and my absolute conviction that by his death he has been conformed totally to the Christ who begged forgiveness for those who crucified him. I'll never truly understand what Ragheed thought while he was alive. I do know that he shared in and was drawn strongly enough by that Pure Love enough to put himself in harm's way in order that he might bring the Eucharist, and teach the logic of the Eucharist to his suffering people. I know that he is now totally conformed to that love, and is with Christ, praying that his brothers and sisters in this world might have
some small idea what that Love truly is, and how powerful and sweet it is. His life and his death make him an icon of that Love, and a true
alter Christus.
Farewell, Fr Ragheed! I beg your intercession to bring me to the home that you have found with the Father!
Listen to
Fr Ragheed singing a hymn to Our Lady.
