Benedictine missionary: “You can’t even imagine how many people all over the world are praying now for Ukraine”
One might talk a lot about father Daniel Ange. He is a Benedictine monk, Belgian by his origin, for 8 years he has worked in Rwanda. He founded an international school of prayer and evangelization named“Jeunesse Lumiere” and organizes missions for youth around the world. In his school in southern France, young people come from all over the world to engage in missionary work and simply to learn more about Jesus. The father decided to help young people after eight years in the Alps that he spent lonely, communicating only with God. Now Father Ange travels and works with young people. In particular, he came back to the city to hold retreats and chat with Ukrainian youth and visited the Ukrainian Catholic University.
“It is my great pleasure to visit Ukraine, which I love,” says Father Ange,“22 years ago I came here for the first time with a group of forty students who had hardly got a visa. We were very touched by what we saw. Ukraine was only getting up at her feet, and the Church came out from underground at last. For young Frenchmen Ukraine was something new and very strange, because it was only recovering from Soviet life.”
The monk recalls his first visit to the Ukrainian Catholic University that just began to renew. “Standing in the chapel at the UCU, I feel as if heaven and earth are united. After so many years of repression I am happy that the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine is finally free. This is a true resurrection.”
After the first visit to the city, the monk and his community began to work with young people of Ukraine. In particular, several students from the Ukrainian Catholic University came to France for study and took a course of evangelization. This is with these young men that the father builds the missionary community, and then they travel around the world. “There are ten small brotherhoods of young people,” says the Benedictine. “They travel across different countries where they share with people the happiness to be a child of God.”
The priest stresses that he sees the spirituality of young Eastern Europeans, which often young people in the West lack, and which should be expanded: "We got used to hurry up and often do not find even a moment for prayer,” he says. “That’s why we have to become missionaries for those who are currently far from religion.” According to Fr. Daniel, every person who attends church is a kind of messenger for his loved ones or friends, because they be influenced and converted. It is very important now that the wars and conflicts are evolving on religious grounds, and when it is necessary to convince the haters to stop.
"We have a huge problem now because of the war, when Christians get killed for their faith. This is a very big threat, and we even cannot for a moment forget about those martyrs who are suffering in Iraq,” -said the priest. “All that they are demanded is to deny Jesus Christ.” However, says the priest, people do not abandon their faith even under threat of death, and prefer to die for it. “In Ukraine there are thousands of similar martyrs,” continues the priest. “They die protecting you. But you cannot even imagine how many people now around the world are praying for Ukrainians and that the war ended.”
The priest believes that although there are a lot of talks about the war, the main mission of Christians is to be peacemakers. “We, as Christians, have to bring peace and eradicate injustice,” says the priest. “And this peace may be given to us only by Jesus, who was born in a country where war continues.”
The priest is confident that Christians must work for reconciliation with other religions. As Father spoke at the UCU on December 1, he told that Charles de Foucault who devoted all his life to reconcile Catholics and Muslims is remembered in the Roman Catholic tradition. “Charles de Foucault was a hermit in Africa for a long time, and lived in a Tuareg tribe, telling them about Christ,” says Father Ange. “During the unrest in the tribe, the Tuaregs killed him. This was a man who walked a long way to meet Jesus.” The priest believes that Foucault’s desire to reconcile Christians and Muslims required tremendous strength and courage, and that it is exactly what people need now.
Anna Romandash
