Today's Martyrs

Today the Church remembers those who gave their lives for their faith in the Sudan on this day in 1983:

 

The Christian bishops, chiefs, commanders, clergy and people of Sudan declared, on May 16, 1983, that they would not abandon God as God had revealed himself to them under threat of Shariah Law imposed by the fundamentalist Islamic government in Khartoum. Until a peace treaty was signed on January 9, 2005, the Episcopal Church of the Province of the Sudan suffered from persecution and devastation through twenty-two years of civil war. Two and a half million people were killed, half of whom were members of this church. Many clergy and lay leaders were singled out because of their religious leadership in their communities. No buildings, including churches and schools, are left standing in an area the size of Alaska. Four million people are internally displaced, and a million are scattered around Africa and beyond in the Sudanese Diaspora. Twenty-two of the twenty-four dioceses exist in exile in Uganda or Kenya, and the majority of the clergy are unpaid. Only 5% of the population of Southern Sudan was Christian in 1983. Today over 85% of that region of six million is now mostly Episcopalian or Roman Catholic. A faith rooted deeply in the mercy of God has renewed their spirits through out the years of strife and sorrow. (From the proposal before the 75th General Convention)

 

This continues even today.  In a very recent new story (15 May 2014) from the Morning Star News we read:

 

A judge in Sudan today confirmed the death sentence for “apostasy” (leaving Islam) for a pregnant Christian woman after she refused to recant, sources said.

 

After her conviction on April 30, Judge Abaas Al Khalifa had given Meriam Yahia Ibrahim 15 days to recant or be executed, with the ultimatum repeated at her hearing on Sunday (May 11). He also confirmed the sentence of 100 lashes for having sex with her husband, considered illicit in Islam because he is a Christian.

“The court has sentenced you to be hanged till you are dead,” Al Khalifa told Ibrahim, who also has a 20-month-old son, after Islamist crowds shouted for the court to punish her.

 

As other Sudanese convicted of leaving Islam have recanted their new faiths in order to avoid execution, the 27-year-old Ibrahim is the first person to be sentenced to death under Sudan’s apostasy law, according to Amnesty International.

 

Before the court appearance, a Muslim scholar went to Ibrahim — as has happened repeatedly since her incarceration without trial in February — and spent nearly 40 minutes trying to force her to recant, sources said. She told him what she told the judge.

 

“I am a Christian, and I have never been a Muslim,” she told Al Khalifa in court.

 

Let us pray:  O God, steadfast in the midst of persecution, by your providence the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church: As the martyrs of the Sudan refused to abandon Christ even in the face of torture and death, and so by their sacrifice brought forth a plentiful harvest, may we, too, be steadfast in our faith in Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

WE HAD A WONDERFUL EVENING LAST NIGHT AT THE SHARING OUR FAITH DINNER AT THE PUTMANS’ HOME.

 

CALENDAR REMINDERS

 

Safeguarding Adults and Children Program at Grace tomorrow starting at 8:30 AM.

 

Adult Christian Education: “The Resurrection: Now What?” continue Sunday at 11 AM.

 

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List.

 

Your servant in Christ,

 

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church

Galveston, Texas 77550