"Of Gods and Men"

At our Lay Cistercian meeting this Saturday, we watched the video, "Of Gods and Men." This is a moving video of the seven French monks who choose to remain in Algeria during that country's violent time in the 1990s. The monks were ultimately taken captive and martyred in 1996. The movie focuses primarily on their individual and collective process of discernment. Discernment is never an easy spiritual discipline because the ego will always work overtime in order to protect the self. Self-protection is one of the primary functions of an ego. The movie does an excellent task of revealing the difficult struggle with which the monks make the decision to stay even after the Algerian authorities asked them to leave. The monks knew with great clarity that the chances of things going well for them was not very good. This is a powerful video and one that I recommend. Our major decisions involve the process of discernment. This movie helps us to understand what that involves.