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| Fr. Ragheed Ganni |
A
few years ago I got a phone call from a priest friend of mine in the
Irish College in Rome where I had studied for three years, to tell me
the sad news that a mutual priest friend of ours had been shot dead
in Iraq after celebrating mass. He was my next-door neighbour in Rome
for a year and a half. He had just celebrated Sunday mass, and was
with three other sub-deacons and the wife of one of them. Their car
was ambushed, the woman was taken out of the car and the three
deacons and Ragheed were shot. The three deacons had given their time
to try and protect Fr. Ragheed, as they knew he was in danger. When
he was forced out of the car, one of the gunmen screamed at him:
“I
told you to close the church. Why didn’t you do it? Why are you
still here?” And he simply responded,
“How
can I close the house of God?”
Ragheed
was just 34. He is now a martyr of the church. He had studied to be a
priest in Rome and spent several summers working in Ireland because
it was too dangerous to go back to Iraq, but eventually he decided
that it was time for him to go back to his home country as the people
needed him. He knew that it would be extremely dangerous and to be
honest I wasn’t that surprised when I heard this terrible news.
About a year before, he had sent me an email telling me that armed
men had come into his house and brought him out at gunpoint and then
blown up the church. He sent me a photo of himself standing outside
the church and it in flames. Just two weeks before he was shot, on
Pentecost Sunday, there had been another bomb attack on the church.
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| Fr. Ragheed's funeral |
He
also told me that over half of his parish had already left, because
it was too dangerous. Anyone who could afford it had gone, but the
poorer people were still there and the thing that will probably stick
with me the most is this: he said that without the Eucharist, the
people have nothing. That is why he was prepared to stay, because he
believed that the Eucharist was everything, and the people needed
this hope and so he was prepared to stay there and risk his life.
Somehow
it is when all our material comforts are taken away, that we suddenly
realise the importance of having spiritual hope. It is not as obvious
to us because we are fairly comfortable and thankfully we can
practice our faith freely, but it is not so easy for many people in
the world right now. However, often when people are suffering for
their faith they are much more tuned in to their need for God, their
need for the Eucharist.
Just
before the war started in Iraq I asked Ragheed what were his fears
for his country. He told me that the problem wasn’t when the US
forces moved in, but rather when they would leave again, because then
there would be civil war and the Christians would be wiped out. That
is exactly what happened. Actually right now on the news we are
hearing about the battle to take back Mosul from Isis. Mosul is where
he was from. It is the biblical city of Nineveh.
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| Mosaic in the Irish College which includes a depiction of Fr. Ragheed | carrying the martyr's palm on the far right |
I
am not telling you this story about Ragheed’s death to just paint a
depressing picture of the terrible things going on in the world, but
rather because it reminds me of the enormous treasure that God has
given us in the Eucharist and the priesthood and what people will
endure because of their hope in God’s promise of life after death.
That gives people great inner strength to go through difficulties. We
also need to hold onto that hope of the world to come. Hopefully we
won’t have to experience that kind of persecution, but even for the
ordinary difficulties that we continually face, it makes all the
difference if we have the inner strength and hope that our faith
gives us. What is that hope? It is the hope that something wonderful
awaits us in the world to come if we choose for God. That helps us to
keep going, to be faithful, especially when things are difficult.
Today’s
readings are about this: religious persecution. In the first reading
we hear about a family who are prepared to face torture and death
rather than turn their back on their faith in God. And the Gospel
Jesus is reminding us that the life after this one is real and worth
struggling to reach. People are prepared to die for the mass and for
their faith because it is the greatest thing that God has given us.
It is what makes sense of why we are here.
As
it happens I was in Rome shortly after Ragheed’s death and I was
there for a special mass that was celebrated in the Irish College
where I studied for three years. It was celebrated by several Iraqi
priests, mostly in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, and which
Ragheed also spoke at home. It was very moving to see several other
young priests there from Iraq who could easily face the same fate as
my friend Fr. Ragheed.
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| Irish College Rome where Ragheed studied for several years |
During the mass, the words that kept going through my mind were the words of the consecration: ‘This is my body, which will be given up for you.’ Those words reminded me of Ragheed’s life. He was prepared to sacrifice himself for his people so that they could have the Eucharist, the greatest treasure that God has given us. In the same way the Lord Jesus sacrificed himself for us as well, so that we might have life. May we also have the grace to be faithful and persevere as he did.
Ragheed Ganni, priest and martyr, pray for us.
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