Dying Well — in a World Filled with Vicious Maniacs — Father Francis Van Der Lugt Refused to Abandon His Pastoral Duties in the Besieged Syrian City of Homs

© 2014 Peter Free

 

08 April 2014

 

 

The light of a good soul’s worth will always outshine the world’s many more numerous examples of twistedness

 

From the Associated Press:

 

 

A beloved, elderly Dutch priest who made headlines this year with a desperate plea for aid for civilians trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was assassinated Monday by a masked gunman who shot him at his monastery, the latest attack targeting Christian clergymen in the country’s civil war.

 

The killing of Father Francis Van Der Lugt — a Jesuit . . . underscored fears among many of Syria’s Christian and Muslim minorities for the fate of their communities as Islamic extremists gain influence among rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad.

 

The 75-year-old Van Der Lugt, an Arabic speaker, had lived in Syria for 50 years and refused to leave Homs even as hundreds of civilians were evacuated from rebel-held districts of Homs that have been besieged for more than a year by Assad’s forces.

 

“People are wandering the streets screaming; We are starving, we need food!,” the priest wrote in a statement published in English and French. “We are living a scary reality. Human beings turn into wild animals living in the wild.”

 

Albert Abdul-Massih, who worked alongside Van Der Lugt, said the slain priest held a doctorate in psychiatry and lived an austere life. His death is a big loss, he said.

 

“We learned humanity from him, and he used to love Muslims as much as he loves Christians,” Abdul-Massih added.

 

“He was treating people for free and he was a fluent Arabic speaker.”

 

© 2014 Associated Press, Gunman kills Dutch priest in Syrian city of Homs, Washington Post (07 April 2014) (extracts)

 

I imagine that Father Van Der Lugt understood the meaning of the example that he was setting, even in his last moments of life.

 

 

The moral? — We most accurately perceive inhumanity, while in the presence of the authentically humane

 

Not that this opportunity for wisdom will prevent the scum who walk the planet from doing what they do.

 

It is the in-between among us, who have the most to learn from seeing the contrasting ends of the spiritual spectrum.