Forgiveness Makes You Free: A Dramatic Story of Healing and Reconciliation from the Heart of Rwanda

"Forgiveness Makes You Free is a gift of mercy from the hand of God. It tells the story of a priest who learned, step by step, to follow after Jesus and to present himself as a ‘living offering’ to God, who learned how to pray, how to forgive, how to resist the enemy, and how to receive the gifts God wanted to give him. Above all, it shows how he learned to follow after Jesus, no matter how much it cost him."

From the foreword by Immaculée Ilibagiza

Author of Left to Tell

Fr. Ubald lives and proclaims a message of freedom and healing that is greatly needed in the Church today. The whole world has heard of the genocide in Rwanda; now it is time for the world to hear the story of redemption happening there. This is a hopeful and inspiring message.

Neal Lozano

Founder of Heart of the Father Ministries

and author of Unbound

‘In the name of Jesus, I forgive you.’ Fr. Ubald’s emotional and courageous story of forgiveness spoke to my heart. His painful yet joyful journey of mercy has borne fruit, annunciating how the healing power of forgiveness can set you free and turn enemies into brothers and sisters in Christ.

Christina Lynch

Director of psychological services

St. John Vianney Theological Seminary

"In our work with Renewal Ministries, we have known and worked with Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga since 2005. In that time, we have seen how the five keys explored in Forgiveness Makes You Free have healed and set thousands free."

Lloyd and Nancy Greenhaw

Country coordinators for Renewal Ministries

With each turn of the page, I yearned evermore to experience the peace Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga preached—a peace that comes from forgiving what seems humanly impossible to forgive; a peace that comes when we release the wounds of the past, especially the wounds that were inflicted by those closest to us; a peace that surpasses all understanding. Through powerful and poignant stories, Fr. Ubald allowed me to step into his shoes and showed me how to walk in forgiveness and mercy, two actions that bring freedom and healing and result in peace and joy. If you have ever had your faith shaken by suffering, struggled with forgiveness, or longed for the peace of Christ to rule your heart, this book is for you!

Kelly M. Wahlquist

Founder of WINE: Women In the New Evangelization

"This dramatic and heart-wrenching personal retelling of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 calls all of its readers to spiritual healing. Only in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can true freedom in lasting peace be found. In Forgiveness Makes You Free, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga shares many stories of people from all over the world, including Europe and America, who came to true forgiveness and offered it to others."

Most Rev. David L. Ricken

Bishop of Green Bay

"Forgiveness Makes You Free is a poignant testament to the experience and power of forgiveness even in the face of horrific events. Fr. Ubald’s reflections on forgiveness, mercy, and reconciliation highlight both their distinctive features and their interrelationship in the context of peace and justice."

Laura Miller-Graff

Assistant Professor of Psychology and Peace Studies

University of Notre Dame

Unless otherwise noted, scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, DC, and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Interior photograph on page 98 © 2018 by KG Fine Photos.

Interior photographs on pages xvii, xviii, xxii, 22, 25, 36, 45, 49, 56, 62, 66, 74, 75, 82, 121, and 123 © 2018 by Katsey Long.

Interior photographs on pages xxiii, xxiv, xxv, 3, 4, 30, 44, 124, and 132 © 2018 by Craig R. Saxton.

Foreword © 2018 by Immaculée Ilibagiza

____________________________________

© 2019 by Ubald Rugirangoga

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews, without written permission from Ave Maria Press®, Inc., P.O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, 1-800-282-1865.

Founded in 1865, Ave Maria Press is a ministry of the United States Province of Holy Cross.

www.avemariapress.com

Paperback: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-871-7

E-book: ISBN-13 978-1-59471-872-4

Cover design by Kristen Hornyak Bonelli and Katherine Robinson.

Text design by Katherine Robinson.

Map illustration by Kristen Hornyak Bonelli.

Printed and bound in Canada.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

Map of Rwanda

CONTENTS

Foreword by Immaculée Ilibagiza

Prologue

Introduction: About Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga and the Center for the Secret of Peace by Heidi Hess Saxton

1. The Night of the Sword

2. Blood on a Thousand Hills

3. Take Up Your Cross, Ubald

4. Making Peace with the Past

5. A Heart of Compassion

6. Stories of Eucharistic Healing

7. A Vision of the Future

8. Pray with Fr. Ubald: A Guided Meditation

Acknowledgments

Appendix: About the Mushaka Reconciliation Project

Notes

Bibliography

FOREWORD

I was so happy when Fr. Ubald agreed to meet with me, face-to-face, at the Christus Center in Kigali, Rwanda, in the fall of 2000. What can I do for you? he asked. Though I was quite in awe of him, his kind eyes and gentle tone put me at ease right away. Like me, he had survived the Rwandan genocide. But while I had moved to the United States to start a new life, he had remained in Rwanda, preaching and using his gifts of healing to help those who had been so deeply wounded. God has used him over and over again to help bring people who were once mortal enemies back together as brothers and sisters in Christ, and I am so grateful to now be able to introduce this kind and loving priest to my new country.

It was 1992, and I was a college student the first time I heard Fr. Ubald preach at a healing service on my college campus. I had heard of a priest who preached forgiveness and healed people, and I wanted to find out more. I watched, fascinated, as with great boldness he led the people to seek deliverance and healing. Go out! Go out! he would shout at the spirits. Then, to the people, The evil one has no place here! Pray with me! Hail, Mary . . . And the people would raise their voices and cry out, calling to heaven as a mighty army of faith. Our Father, who art in heaven . . . The room rang with victory. Yes, even before the genocide, Jesus was touching people’s lives through Fr. Ubald, reminding us of God’s living presence among us. I saw many, many people delivered.

It was around this same time that I also heard of the messages of Our Lady of Kibeho, which was approved by the Vatican in 1991. Over and over, the Blessed Mother told those who would listen that souls need prayer like flowers need water; without prayer, our souls wither and are easily ensnared by evil. At that time, God was pouring out his Spirit on his people, trying to draw them close to him to avert the tragic violence that would soon erupt. And some people did pray—but not enough.

Each time I saw Fr. Ubald process through the crowd, blessing people with Jesus in the Eucharist, I saw people respond. After each procession, Father would proclaim what Jesus had done that day. Someone is supposed to have an operation. Jesus wants you to know you don’t need it anymore. Go to your doctor and have him examine you, Father would say. Then another, and another: a woman healed of infertility, someone’s ear sore or leg wound healed, or a mental illness released.

Go home and see your doctor, and get confirmation, he would say. Then come back and give testimony, and thank God for what he has done for you. And people did. Time after time, people would stand and give witness of having been to a prayer service and claimed their healing—and had it confirmed by their own doctor. This happened first in Rwanda and later in the United States and Europe. You will meet some of these people in this book.

FR. UBALD COMES TO THE UNITED STATES

When I first reached the United States and began telling my story, many people came to me and told me how much my story had blessed them, how God had used my story to show them why they needed to forgive too. I would think to myself, Oh, if they could only meet Fr. Ubald. Then they would really experience something powerful!

And so, in 2009 I invited Father to come with me to one of my talks, and I saw people respond to him just as they had in Rwanda. The Holy Spirit used Fr. Ubald in a powerful way to bring a message of forgiveness and healing to those who most needed to hear it.

I am so grateful to be able to introduce this wonderful priest to my new homeland and allow people here to experience this encounter with Jesus through five spiritual keys of faith: seeing God at work, forgiving, resisting evil, choosing to live for Christ, and receiving God’s blessing. When I was young, I remember hearing my mother coughing and coughing because she had asthma. Her illness affected all of us who loved her. And the same is true when someone has cancer or another illness: their sickness causes many people to suffer. The opposite is also true: when one person is healed, the whole family is healed.

In this country, people opened their hearts to me because of my story. They have listened to my story and received the truth of it in a way that often people in my own country cannot understand. Jesus said, A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house (Mk 6:4). In many ways, Fr. Ubald’s message—both in his preaching and in this book—will bear much fruit in the lives of people outside Rwanda because of this. Each time he proclaims the power of God to release us from the wounds of the past, he gives people hope to come to Jesus for healing too.

THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

It is a work of grace that this book is coming out on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. How I wish there were many more like it! Although Rwanda has come very far in healing the divisions among people, we still have far to go. We are still healing. And the more light that is shed on those wounds, the more we are challenged to look not at what we lost but at the lessons we have learned that can become gifts for the world. Oh, how the world needs to learn from what we have suffered!

Sadly, there are still many people in Rwanda who are unable to hear the message of forgiveness because they are too caught up in their own pain and loss. Even my own brother, who was not living in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, struggled for years to listen to my story of how God helped me forgive the people who had murdered those I love so much. Over and over I asked God to show me how to help him, but each time I tried, my brother would turn away from me, too upset to listen.

It wasn’t until I wrote my book that he finally began to work through his feelings. He slowly read my story and realized not just what I had gone through but also how God’s hand had been upon me so that I would live to tell not only of the evil I had experienced but also of the grace I had found.

In Rwanda it is difficult for me to tell my story the way I do in the United States. In Rwanda, if you speak of tribes—Hutu and Tutsi—people resist. For many people, this is no longer something to be discussed, no longer an important part of a person’s identity. And yet, when I speak in America of the ethnic divisions that are part of my country’s history, people listen. They understand what it means to be divided from others or to be treated differently because of an accident of birth—of race or ethnicity. They listen to my story, and of the divisions between Hutu and Tutsi, and think of the violence that has been part of their own story, where the words black and white have so much historic and cultural weight. When they hear where it all ended—of the hatred, the violence, and the victimization of those who are different—they say, Thank you for helping me. Thank you for telling your story. It has helped me see my brother as another person. It has helped me to see how much I still need to forgive.

Here in the United States, Fr. Ubald’s story of division will have great impact. It is not racial—and yet the outcome of the discrimination is there. Every evil manifests itself in the same way, whether as the Tutsi or Hutu, or as white, black, or brown. Our stories from Rwanda have helped people in the United States understand where we have been and where we are going unless we change. If you are at all interested in going through a healing process, you must do it. There is nothing good about these divisions; they only cause bad and evil. And yet, it is not too late to receive God’s grace. If then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land (2 Chr 7:14).

It will take time, but it can happen. Not long ago I returned to my village and met a man who had participated in the killings. He said to me, You really want to know how I feel? I miss the people I killed.

I was shocked. What did he mean?

Look at what we did to ourselves, he continued. "Look at the road—it is growing grass because no one is passing by. The things we took, they were gone in a month—but these people, our neighbors, they are gone forever. We thought that, by killing them, our enemies would be defeated. Instead, they just rose up from within our own tribe.

I know you are a preacher, he said to me. I am not. But I have seen these things. And I know that this was wrong. It was like a hurricane going through my mind, telling me that it will always be this way. But after the hurricane, the truth emerged. I knew, and could not avoid, the truth of what I had done.

I prayed with this man for peace. All the emotions that he had pushed down for so long had risen to the top, like cream. All the strong emotions, at some point in your life, will rise to the top and remind you, accuse you of what you have done. These things must be faced and dealt with. It may happen on your deathbed, but it must come out.

LISTEN TO OUR LADY OF KIBEHO

When Our Lady appeared to the schoolgirls at Kibeho in 1981, her message was for the whole world—not just for Rwanda. She showed the children the pain that was coming to our country, saying, If you will listen to me, it will not come. If you do not listen, it will come not only to Rwanda but to the whole world. I have