"Martyres", Part 2

“The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!” *

The location of the Fosse Ardeatine Massacre

On March 24^th, 1944, Three hundred thirty-five people were captured, driven to an obscure location, and led to a small abandoned cave. In sixty-seven groups of five, they were made to kneel on the hard rocky ground.

Wanting to save on ammunition, a group of Nazi soldiers murdered each person with exactly one bullet. The soldiers then threw their lifeless bodies into piles roughly one meter tall, making space for the next line of terrified victims. For three-hundred thirty of them, their last sights on this earth were the blood-covered corpses of their compatriots. When it was done, the bodies were left to rot for more than three months, with no notification to the families or loved ones of the victims. **

Standing in the spot where the Fosse Ardeatine Massacre took place, the presence of evil in this world was so painfully and horrifically present. A fellow visitor expressed the feeling that “the Devil is running the world”. To me, it was like the day I stood at Cape Coast Castle, (the largest slave trading fort in West Africa) which was the killing field of my own captured ancestors.

These people were not just victims. Ranging from elderly grandparents to young teenagers, they were fathers, mothers, siblings, Christians, Jews, lawyers, doctors, clergy, shopkeepers, friends, lovers, spouses, children and people of varied ethnic groups and languages. Most of all, they were Martyres - the Latin name for "witnesses" (which gave birth to the modern English word "martyr"). They witnessed one another's horrific deaths, and in dying, their blood cries out to all of us, witnessing to the greatest evils of this world.

The entrance to the cave

This week, that witnessing sensation seems ever more present to me and to so many in my home country and across the world. We can no longer escape the brutality which we inflict upon one another through every form of violence. Especially with the carnivorous guns and bombs that litter God’s creation, we are killing ourselves and our families every single day. All of us are culpable. Though many of us have never held a gun or a bomb in our hands, we failed to protect those whose lives have been cut short by violence. And we have failed to protect those whose lives will be cut short by violence too.

Today, roughly ninety people in the United States and hundreds of people around the world woke up this morning. They expect to go to bed tonight, but instead, they will be murdered – or have already been murdered by gun violence today.

Gravestones mark each victim by name, age, religion and photograph

Tomorrow, the same thing will happen to the same number of people. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day. And every day after that – over time more and more and more. It may be your co-worker or friend, or loved one, or spouse. It could be your son or your daughter. It may be you. It may be me.

This is not about Muslims and Christians. This is not about “those” terrorists. Every day we allow this to happen, we become  pawns of the gun-bearing brutality that devours ninety lives every single day.

It will never end until we make it end. One thing is for sure. It will never end with our “thoughts and prayers”, as expressed not even half-heartedly by those who seek to wish away the greatest tragedies of our age.

Pray with your hands. Pray with your feet. Pray with your bodies. Pray with your pocketbooks. Pray with your families. DO SOMETHING.

“The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground!” *

*(Gen. 4:10, NIV)

** Toward the end of World War II, Mussolini’s fascist regime had just been voted out, and replaced by a general who promptly drew up terms of unconditional surrender to the allied powers. The Nazi German forces responded by marching into Rome to occupy the city. When a group of anti-German Italians ambushed and killed a group of thirty-three Nazi soldiers, Hitler personally ordered that ten Italian civilians must be killed for every one German casualty. (Five more were added because of a mathematical error). Near the northern edge of Rome, along the old Via Apia (perhaps the most famous road of the ancient Roman Empire) lies the Fosse Ardeatine Memorial. There, in an unassuming niche on the edge of a park in a lovely residential neighborhood, unspeakable violence occurred just a few decades ago.

**N.B., Because I chose not to take photos for much of our time at the memorial in order to absorb its significance, the first three pictures were borrowed with permission from here, here, and here. The fourth picture was taken by the Rev. Rosa Lee Harden. For more information, visit the monument's website.