I am still getting over the long trip to Earling, Iowa. It is a seven hour drive from home including a couple of pit stops, being only 30 miles from the Nebraska border, but it is not the long drive that now affects me. Rather, it is the speaker we went to see, and unlike road weariness, I don’t want to get over what I was given, ever.
Nothing was propitious about the drive. There were severe weather warnings and tornado sightings all along our route. The wind ripped across the highway and raindrops the size of jelly beans pelted the car like slushy hail. The dust guard under the car came lose and flapped with a “pop- pop-pop” the entire drive. Worst of all, the Blue Tooth on the driver’s car would not accept my audio book, so I would have to sit with four women – one my wife – in a cramped space for seven hours each way with nothing to distract. I have never been left unscathed when outnumbered by women in such a situation for that long a time. I would not be this time, either, but it was all worth it, every wind-pounded, rain-drenched moment of the long trek through endless fields of freshly manured corn stubble. It was all worth it because of the speaker we went to see, Immaculee Ilibagiza from Rwanda.
I had heard of her more than ten years before as the lady who had witnessed the miracles and apparitions of Mary and then who had survived the terrible genocidal slaughter in her native country of Rwanda. The miracles had started to happen in 1981. Immaculee was then a grammar school student in a typical village that was a three hour drive from Kibeho, the site of the apparitions, but still she would get a ride and be present at them as often as possible. The apparitions followed their course in a way that has become usual since at least the 1800’s: in some village or town, suddenly several children start dropping to their knees before something unseen and then go into deep rapture, so deep that touching their eyes with needles or surprising them with bright lights does not make them flinch. After returning from their trance, they then tell others that they have talked to the Virgen Mary. In Kibeho, Mary (as usual) told them of God’s infinite love, and implored them and everyone to be more faithful in both religious practice and in loving and forgiving their neighbors. Again, as usual, miracle healings occurred throughout, strange lights and other odd weather phenomena were observed, and many came to have their faith deeply renewed or even begun from scratch.
This went on for several years in Kibeho until the early nineties when Mary startled the children visionaries with warnings of blood and mayhem. The poor children were subjected to visions of blood and corpses piled as high as grain bins. They were told that everyone must forgive and love as God does before this horrible vision became a reality. All this is well documented. Then, just as has happened so many times before – read about the apparitional warnings of Fatima and Medjugorje – the truly awful came to pass. Just as it was warned, it happened precisely because of a lack of forgiveness and love. In 1994, in a span of just three months, nearly one million ethnic Tutsis were killed by the Hutu majority. When I looked it up, that amounted to 77% of the entire Tutsi population.
Immaculee is Tutsi, but she was saved by a courageous Hutu neighbor who agreed to hide her and seven others in a spare three foot by four foot bathroom. There they had to stay for 91 days in silence and fear. It was there that Immaculee was transformed, where she was made into the author and remarkable person she is today.
Read her books, the first being Our Lady of Kibeho. You will not only learn of the genocide and her terrifying ordeal, but also of the miracles that occurred, both in healings and prophecy and in soul healing through the Holy Spirit. You will read that two of her brothers and both her parents were slaughtered by the machete-wielding Hutus. You will also learn how she came to forgive and even physically embrace the very Hutu man from her village who killed her father. In this you will learn of her very special grace.
The day of the meeting:
My wife and I had slept like crap the night before in a hotel in a small town near the church where Immaculee would talk, the only hotel we knew of in the middle of this wide-open rural area. We drove to the church where she would give her presentation and were shocked by the number of people that were attending. ‘400’ they later told us, more people than now lived in the dwindling town of Earling. We sat huddled in a crowd probably many times larger than any church service conducted there in the past year, and then she appeared as if she were a solo singing act and began to speak. She was very dark brown, much darker than the average “black” American, and she was beautiful, her skin as smooth and creamy as gourmet dark chocolate. But as she talked of love and the beauty of Our Lady, I struggled to fight sleep. I remained upright through sheer will as I yawned and yawned until my eyes watered.
After over three hours of sitting on the hard wood of the pew, I wished for it all to end. We took a long lunch break and returned. Then something happened. I don’t know how, but suddenly I perked up and everything she said took on deep meaning. She talked of her trials in the genocide, of her childhood, of her later marriage and life in the USA, of her pilgrimages back to Kibeho and to Fatima and to Lourdes and to other apparition sites. The topics she spoke of seemed more interesting than before, but something else was going on.
What that was became much clearer in the hours and few days since. She had talked to us of the great powers channeled through her from Our Lady, and told us to ask for whatever we wished, and then write it down to check and see what became of that wish (or wished) in a month or two. Many miracles, she told us, had happened that way in the recent past. A day later I remembered what she had said (a miracle in itself) and I wrote my wishes down with genuine seriousness. This was not due to a sudden rush of childish hope, but because of what Our Lady had already given both my wife and me in the hours since the retreat: grace; a beautiful, wonderful, interior grace.
Yes, I know it will dissipate, for my feet are fully made of clay, but still it lingers and still I can speak of it. It is the grace of faith, of the certainty of the love of God, of His promises of heaven made to us through Jesus. It is the feeling of connection, of knowing that life is meaningful and beautiful regardless of what happens, even - though we would never want it - through horrible periods of war and genocide. Yes, even then. It is a knowledge that we are never alone and are guided, that whatever terrible decisions are made by us or by others, good will come from it eventually through the infinite love and power of God. It is the firm inner-knowledge that all fits, that everything is assumed into the plan, that all is connected, and that all of us are infinite, cosmic and blessed beings.
Pretty big stuff, but like the wind that is the Holy Spirit, it worked its way into me quietly. It rose slowly as a background feeling of happiness, of health, and of excitement over what was next to come in life. These feelings remained the entire drive back, which went off flawlessly in perfect weather, and they have stayed to this day - fading yes, but still present enough to give understand and, most importantly, to believe. So much so, that when my brother called the other night, I did not want to talk about the “sad state of affairs” as we usually do, but rather about this special gift that had been given us. This desire was felt so strongly that when the latest episode of political vengeance came on the news, I did not curse the perceived villains, but rather thought of what Immaculee had told us: forgive and pray for those who have offended us, and for those in power so that they might do the right thing. That is what she had done for the man who had killed her father, and that is the practiced wisdom she left for us so that we may live in truth and beauty rather than in anger and resentment.
Immaculee is a Catholic, and Mary is primarily honored by Catholics. Still, if I had to bet, I would bet that every one of every faith, and even those without any faith, can come to receive and cherish the grace she radiates. Ultimately, her life has shown the world that the very best can come from the very worst. This is the truth given to her by the divine power. From this we learn that the whole is infinitely greater than the sum; that evil can show us the way to our own redemption; and that suffering is not only our lot, but can be our privilege and great teacher if we allow it to be. This truth tells us that God makes all things perfect in time, and that we are called to be like God; that is, to make all things in our lives into something blessed by the Lord. In this, we will walk with the wind of the Holy Spirit at our backs towards a horizon where all is folded into beauty.
RSS Feed