AS THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER for JSerra Catholic High School’s third annual Adelante Fest, Immaculée Ilibagiza delivered a message that was profound, timely and deeply rooted in the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The Rwandan American shared her experience as a survivor of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when she was among eight women who hid for three months in 3-by-4-foot bathroom. Ilibagiza’s mother, father and two brothers were among 800,000 people, mostly those in the Tutsi ethnic group, who were slaughtered by Hutu extremists in only 100 days.
Relying on prayer, meditation and reflection, Ilibagiza, 53, was able to come to a state of forgiveness for the extremists who committed the atrocities.
Inspired by the mission of high school’s patron saint, Junípero Serra, the aim of the Adelante Fest is to build faith, education and community, said Pat Reidy, vice president of mission and faith.
“We’re trying to make sure that the speakers really talk to the heart of what we’re doing as a Church at large and what we’re trying to accomplish here as a school,” Reidy said. “In my opinion, Immaculée’s story is one of the most important that we’ve had in our modern Catholic life, and particularly so for our culture at this moment.”
The assassination of Rwanda’s president in April 1994 triggered months of massacres of Tutsi ethnic group members, including Ilibagiza’s family.
As she clutched Rosary beads in her left hand, Ilibagiza looked out at the audience in the multipurpose room and recounted her 91 days of hiding.
With her eyes welling up at times throughout her 45-minute talk, Ilibagiza spoke of hearing two voices in her head, one telling her to go outside to be killed and “end the torture.”
“However, there was another voice in me,” Ilibagiza said. “Do not open the door. Ask God to help you. Remember who God is. God is almighty. Do you know what almighty means? It means even if they shoot you, the bullet might not go through you. And I turned to God with every cell of my body like I never prayed before.”
She recalled praying the Rosary 27 times a day and reflecting on Bible verses where Jesus spoke about loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.
“So anytime I would reach the part that said, ‘forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ I couldn’t say those words,” Ilibagiza said. “And now I’m lying to God. But I don’t want to lie because I need him. If we lie to our friends, what happens? Especially when they know we’re lying to them. You risk losing that friend. And the same thing with God. I don’t want to lie to my God.”
Ilibagiza was finally able to attain a state of forgiveness and the freedom that comes with it – freedom to live without being attached to those who persecute her, and freedom to think about her future, she said.
“Freedom to think of people who are good to me,” Ilibagiza said. “And freedom to let them go. And I felt so good. I remember I wished to be able to have a moment like this.”
Ilibagiza closed her testimony by encouraging the audience to trust God and live in the moment.
“I have really learned to thrust that voice inside,” she said.
Ilibagiza has authored multiple books. Here first book, “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust,” was a New York Times best seller and has garnered multiple awards, including the Mahatma Gandhi International Award for Reconciliation and Peace.
This year’s Adelante Fest took place in more intimate setting, in the school’s quad, instead of on the large athletic field, where it was held for the first two years.
A Mass was celebrated prior to Ilibagiza’s testimony, with games and food trucks in the quad following the talk.
“Our theme has always been the same in the sense that we’re trying to share our gifts with broader communities,” Reidy said.