There was a time when Immaculee Ilibagiza didn’t think she’d live to see another day.
Now, she rejoices for each new day because it gives her a chance to share her faith.
Ilibagiza, author of “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust,” was at St. Timothy Catholic Church on Jan. 27 and Jan. 28, sharing her story of survival — which she attributes to God’s immense love.
The church invited her to speak, as part of its celebration of the Jubilee year of Mercy.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
Pope Francis has declared a Jubilee of Mercy, which began Dec. 8 and runs through Nov. 20, 2016, according to the National Catholic Reporter. The pope has called on Catholics around the world to use the ongoing Jubilee year of mercy to “open wide” the doors of their hearts to forgive others and to work against social exclusion.
Ilibagiza’s message fits perfectly with that theme.
She grew up in a small village in Rwanda and had been attending the National University of Rwanda to study electrical and mechanical engineering.
She was home on Easter break in April of 1994 when the assassination of the Hutu president sparked months of massacres of Tutsi tribe members throughout the country.
To spare his daughter from rape and murder, Ilibagiza’s father told her to run to the home of a Hutu pastor, who was a family friend. The pastor hid her and seven other women in a cramped 3-foot-by-4-foot bathroom for 91 days.
“We stayed in that bathroom three months. We never spoke to each other those three months,” she said.
During that time, her faith was crushed and challenged.
She knew that any tiny noise could lead to her death.
The Hutu killers stormed into the pastor’s house and searched through it. They looked on the roof, under the beds and in the ceiling.
As she feared for her life, she asked God to give her a sign. She asked him to keep the intruders from finding the bathroom door.
In a 60 Minutes interview, the pastor said one of the intruders put his hand on the doorknob, but didn’t turn it.
That’s when Ilibagiza said she knew, without doubt, that God is real.
It took her quite some time, though, to reach a point where she could forgive the murderers.
She said she used to pray the “Our Father,” but couldn’t sincerely ask God “to forgive” those who had trespassed against her, so she skipped that part of the prayer.
Eventually, though, she realized that the prayer was instituted by Jesus, so she had to find a way to forgive the people who brutally killed her family, friends and other members of the tribe.
That’s when she began praying for the ability to forgive.
She then realized that would require true surrender. So, she prayed for that.
The words that Jesus spoke, as he was dying on the cross, provided guidance, she said.
During his agony, he uttered, “Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they do,” she said.
And, it occurred to her that the people wielding machetes were like the people who killed Jesus.
“They have been blinded by hatred, selfishness, all of those things have taken over, blinded them,” she said.
And, it also reminded her that everyone is capable to choosing the wrong path.
“All of us we become blind, when we go into hatred, when we become selfish,” she said.
Forgiveness, however, frees those who have been harmed to move away from the hatred and to choose peace, she said.
Her change of heart did not come overnight and did not come easily, she said.
When she went into that bathroom, she said, she weighed 115 pounds and when she came out, she weighed 65 pounds.
“Every bone was out,” she said. “People were running away from me when I came out, ‘Look at her, she became a skeleton.’
But, that wasn’t her only or most important transformation.
“Inside my heart, I felt so beautiful. Inside my heart, I was smiling,” she said.
“I knew who I was. I’m a child of God. I’m not going to hate. I’m going to pray.”
February 3, 2016
