“It means the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom,” he said.
As Francis delivered those words last year on his first Easter as Pope, his Jesuit colleague Fr. Frans van der Lugt was giving witness to that message 3,000 km away in the sorrowful Syrian city of Homs. The city has been under siege for two years in a war that, according to respected estimates, has killed more than 125,000 people. Fr. van der Lugt had refused several opportunities to flee, refused to abandon the suffering people he’d served for almost 50 years.
“How can I leave?” he declared earlier this year. “It is impossible.”
So he stayed, living in a Jesuit residence and dedicating his days and nights to a dangerous mission of compassion. He made no distinction between Christian and Muslim as he gave shelter, food and comfort to anyone who knocked on his door. He also made international pleas on YouTube and Facebook for aid and for peace.
“We are starving, we need food!” he cried. A Christian and foreigner in a civil war frequently bloodstained by religious violence, Fr. van der Lugt knew his public persona made him a target. Yet he declared, “As long as there is one person from our community left here, I will stay with them.”
On April 7, three days before his 76th birthday, Fr. van der Lugt was lured outside his residence, beaten and executed by an unknown shooter. He died for his faith, a martyr’s death.
Pope Francis has likened Easter to an exodus, “the passage of human beings” from the slavery of sin and evil to the freedom of love and goodness. During half a century of faithful service in Syria, Fr. van der Lugt introduced that type of Easter exodus to all he encountered. More than preach the Good News, he lived it by his courageous witness to Christ in an environment infected by the hateful mindset of war. As Easter proclaims that God will never abandon us, Fr. van der Lugt embraced his forsaken flock in Homs. He was their light of love and goodness.
Thousands of priests, nuns and lay missionaries around the world honour that message of Easter in crippled countries and villages that are often dangerous places. Like the late Fr. van der Lugt, they are committed to sharing the joy, hope and redemption of the Gospel through courageous lives that epitomize the Easter message.
Similarly, the Resurrection calls us all to become Easter people, to show others the way to love and goodness by never failing to give witness to the promise of Easter.