By Mark Reidy
Immaculée Ilibagiza confessed to over 1,000 people at the Notre Dame University in Fremantle on 29 June that, during the first weeks of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, she would alternate her decades of the Rosary with graphic visualisations of how she would kill as many of her persecutors as possible.
Speaking for the first time in Australia, as part of a nation-wide tour, Immaculée mesmerised the capacity audience with her journey from bitter hatred, as she spent 91 days trapped in a small bathroom with seven other women, to her moment of complete surrender to God, who she discovered beyond the merciless brutality that surrounded her.
“I knew that I was lying to God in my heart”, she shared with a crowd that spilt into the cold night air, “But I also knew that I wasn’t capable of forgiving on my own.” It was only when she begged God to lift her above the fear and hate that was consuming her, that she understood the depth of His love and the healing power of His grace. One day, as she was meditating on the Sorrowful Mysteries of Christ, Immaculée said that she heard Him speak, ‘They do not know what they do’ and these words resonated, “like a thunder in my heart”, she shared. “It was as though a huge baggage of bitterness was lifted from me” she said, “and I felt freedom.” For the first time since the massacre began, which claimed almost one million Tutsi lives, she was able to move her focus away from the killers and turn them toward her heavenly Father.
“I used to think that forgiving was giving in and condoning what was wrong”, she said, “But I began to see it as an opportunity to pray for someone who needs it”. And pray she did. During her time cramped in the bathroom, Immaculée revealed that despite being tormented by evil voices of ridicule and doubt, enduring many searches by machete-wielding Hutus who came within inches of her hiding place and dropping from 52 to 29 kilograms, she would pray 27 Rosaries a day.
She continued her intimate relationship with God even after learning of the brutal deaths of most of her family and friends, and was able to nurture the seed of peace that had been planted in her heart.
Immaculée’s powerful and heart wrenchingly honest testimony bore witness to the message that, through the grace of God, love and hope can never be extinguished – even by the worst elements of human depravity.
Cath Holliday, 45, visiting from Melbourne was moved by what she heard. “It is a powerful story and, while difficult to comprehend the scale of such horror, the message of forgiveness is a message for us all,” she said.
Immaculee’s plea also resonated with fellow genocide survivor, Musi Peace Mimi, 26. “What Immaculée shared is true and real. Forgiveness is the first step to healing, both in an individual and a country”, she said. Now living in Perth and undertaking a Bachelor of Commerce degree, Musi said that, like Immaculée, she had been able to find peace in her own heart, but knows of others in her homeland who continue to struggle with the devastation that was inflicted upon them.
Today, Immaculée lives in New York with her husband Bryan and her two children and travels the globe sharing the healing power of forgiveness and promoting the messages given to three visionaries in the Rwandan village of Kibeho from 1981. The site has become the first and only Vatican approved Marian site in Africa to which Immaculée regularly leads pilgrimages.
It was in these messages, Immaculée shared, that Our Lady of Kibeho warned that, unless the Rwandan people turned back to God and away from the ethnic tensions that had simmered for decades, it would become a country flooded with “rivers of blood”.
Immaculée, who knew of these messages as a young child, became excruciatingly aware of their reality during the 1994 horror. She is now determined to take these messages to the world. “Rwanda did not listen”, she stated at the conclusion of her talk, “But the world must. God is as real as I am to you and you are to me”.
But Immaculée is adamant that prayer and fasting are the pathways to discovering His reality. “If I can forgive, then everyone can”, she says. “Prior to the genocide I would have never believed that it was possible … but when God says that all things are possible, that is exactly what He means – ALL things”.
Immaculée’s books are available from The Record Bookshop: Left To Tell – $26.95; Led By Faith – $26.95; Our Lady of Kibeho- $19.95.