Martin Jenco (1934–1996)

Father Marty Jenco was a newcomer to Beruit working with the local chapter of Catholic Relief Services when he was kidnapped by Shiite Muslim guerrillas and held as a hostage for nearly two years. The slim book details Fr. Jenco's simple Christ-like faith which allows him to retain hope during times of abuse and deprivation, and more shocking to forgive his captors. While in captivity he manages to pray, to celebrate Eucharist, and to join in faith with his fellow hostages. He also is able to overcome his anger and see his guards as individuals, recognizing their humanity, and even offering forgiveness to one guard who asks for it. Through it all he keeps his heart on God and is able to see God's love in the small details such as one night when the guards bring him to the roof to look at the moon. A very inspiring and touching book.
Favorite Passages

At this roof-edge of my prison life, in the white luminance of moon and stars, with the smell and taste of the salt sea-breeze, I knew love reigned invisibly. In the stark electric glare and grinding murmur of this tortured, fratricidal city, I knew this wasn't the world God created. I heard God's love singing to me and in me, modulating all the world's fantastic dissonances (p. 49-50).
Some people advise me to forgive and forget. They do not realize that this is almost impossible. Jesus, the wounded healer, asks us to forgive, but he does not ask us to forget. That would be amnesia. He does demand we heal our memories.

I don't believe that forgetting is one of the signs of forgiveness. I forgive, but I remember. I do not forget the pain, the loneliness, the ache, the terrible injustice. But I do not remember it to inflict guilt or some future retribution. Having forgiven, I am liberated. I need no longer be determined by the past. I move into the future free to imagine new possibilities (p. 135).
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