Father Christophe's Spiritual Testament

Dear Father Marie-Dominique,
dear candidates,
dear parents of candidates,
dear friends of the Community of Saint John,
brothers and sisters,

The last priestly ordination that I had the honor of celebrating was that of Father Christophe from Tibhirine, one of the seven martyred monks of the monastery, and the last diaconal ordination was that of Father Christian Chessel, one of the four White Fathers sacrificed at Tizi Ouzou. This tells you something about my emotion in celebrating with you and in the name of the Church your diaconal and priestly ordination in the Community of Saint John.

This is why I would like to shed some light upon the meaning of your ordination from the experience of our Church in Algeria. First let us consider the spiritual testament of Father Christian, prior of Tibhirine. This message beyond his death was a message of life, an exceptional manifestation of the Gospel, not only for us Christians but also for all men of good will, Moslems, agnostics, or non-Catholic believers. This is the first conviction of our Church in Algeria which I would like to compare with your ordination. You are going to be consecrated in service to the Gospel. You will have to live this service not only in the Church already gathered, for the benefit of your Christian brothers, but also in society, for the benefit of all men of good will. Your priesthood and diaconate are given to you by God through the faith of the Church, not only for the Christian community but also for the human community to which you must also manifest the gift of God, the gift of Christ and the gift of the Gospel. Jesus says, "Just as you have sent me into the world, I also send them into the world."

The second conviction of our Church in Algeria that I want to bring to you in order to shed light on your ordination is the experience of suffering-even martyrdom-that we undergo on account of Jesus and His Gospel. Every morning we celebrate the Eucharist without knowing if this will be the day when the Lord will ask us to consent to the ultimate sacrifice of our life in order to place it in Christ's sacrifice as an ultimate response to the Love of the One who loved us first and sacrificed Himself for us. This is the light in which we understand the Eucharist and the Priesthood. "Although He is the Son, He nevertheless learned obedience by His Passion and, thus brought to perfection, He became the cause of eternal salvation."

John Paul II, in his book for the fiftieth anniversary of his priesthood, tells us this: "The Eucharist does not exist without the Priesthood, just as the Priesthood does not exist without the Eucharist."

Your priesthood, at the service of the mystery of the Eucharist, will serve the deepest mystery of all Christian existence, and I would add even of all truly human life.

These are the essential realities that we find expressed once again, written in blood, in the testament of our brother Christian de Chergé, prior of the monastery of Tibhirine.

Evoking in advance his possible sacrifice, he said, "I would like for my Community, my Church, my family to remember that my life was given to God and this country."

This is transcribed into the realities lived in our time in the majestic and magnificent affirmation of the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer: "Father, when the hour came for you to glorify your Son, as He had loved those who were His own in the world... He took bread, giving it to them saying, 'This is my body, given up for you.'" We all know this sublime phrase of Father Christian: "Christ loved the Algerians so much that He gave His life for them. And ourselves, following Him. We have a good Paschal remembrance." This expresses everything about the Paschal mystery, the Priesthood, and the Eucharist.

This is, moreover, what one of you wrote me concerning the meaning of his priesthood: "to be able to make present the offering of Jesus for the fervor of the faithful. It is an invitation for him to be penetrated himself by this offering in the concreteness of his life."

Now what we live together in your ordination rites must go to the heart of these realities. "God is love." "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for our brothers" (1 Jn. 3:6). This is the Paschal mystery. This is the Eucharist that we make present. This is the priesthood that enables Jesus to give the fruits of His sacrifice to every man so that he may actualize the realities of it in his own life.

It is first of all in this sense that will be verified, in your lives as priests, the words of Isaiah recalled in the first reading: "The Lord has made of me, of you, a Messiah, a Christ" (Isa. 61:1). This is also what is meant by the last phrase of the Gospel for this Mass: "And for their sakes I consecrate myself, so that they also may be consecrated in truth."

I come from a Church where these certitudes are present in the conscience of every one of us, every morning, when we enter into our Eucharistic celebration because of the concrete situation in which we live. And I am sure that many others can say the same thing in Africa, at Goma or Bunia in Zaire, at Kigali in Rwanda, at Bujumbura in Burundi, at Juba in the Sudan or in Monrovia in Liberia. In each of these places I know several priests who thus live the realities of the Paschal mystery.

The offering and the promise of new life that it implies is in fact expressed everywhere and under a multitude of forms. One of you was telling me of already living very simply as "vicar" at the mother house "a good experience of service to my brothers," and his service will become a "diaconate" by the grace of God. This is the mystery that one of you has discovered, beyond the seductions of Eastern religions, in a monastery of the Sisters of Bethlehem during Easter of 1985 and which led him, through the Apostles of Peace, to the Community of Saint John.

These are remarks which can appear quite serious, yet they lead to true happiness. One of you also wrote me, "In my heart I have the desire to be truly present in this gift that God makes of Himself to His Father and to men."

We ourselves are surprised in Algeria at the serenity God gives us in our great trial. It is quite simply that our situation is in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love.

If your priesthood is lived at this level of depth, it will give you joy and will ensure your influence in your relation as priests with all those entrusted to you. There are those who speak of the skepticism of our generation. It is true that ideologies no longer have much sway, yet lived testimonies still touch the hearts of our contemporaries. We have proof of this when the daily fidelity of our brother monks to their contemplative life was suddenly revealed by the media to a very wide public, Christian or non-Christian.
It is in this light that each of you can renew during this moment of your ordination this prayer of Jesus: "Father, I consecrate myself, so that they also might be consecrated in truth."