Priest among chains: Fr Anton Luli S.J. (1910-1998) Fr Anton Luli (excellent link) evoked the testimony of his priestly life in the Classroom Paul VI to John Paul II in 1996, when 50 years of priestly ordination of Pope.
"It is not easy to live the priesthood in jail or a concentration camp. God allowed that this was the way to carry the love of God to men of Fr Anton Luli for over 40 years of ministry. " Anton Luli was born in Albania the year 1910. God called him to join the Society of Jesus, which received priestly ordination in 1946. Albania, their homeland, had lived the drama of World War II. Expel the invaders, the country was under the sway of a railway communist dictatorship. Many priests were imprisoned and shot. On December 19, 1947 he was arrested and locked in a small room and cold. This Christmas, for him, were a real ordeal of pain, but with the strange peace that can only come from a faith intense and cordial. Many years later received at the Vatican, Pope Paul VI in the classroom, which had been the experience:
Political changes in Eastern Europe also arrived, albeit with enormous problems and delays, the small republic of Albania. Fr Luli was released in 1989. He was 79 years old. A few days after leaving prison found one of those who had been their executioners. Again we tell him what happened at that time: "I've never saved rancour towards those who, humanly speaking, I stole life. After liberation, I met by chance in the street with one of my tormentors: I felt compassion for him, I went to meet them and embrace it. " The life of Fr Luli, their particular way of living the priesthood, reminds one of the privileges of any minister of Christ: love to give their lives for friends.
(Father Anton Luli evoked the testimony of his priestly life in the Classroom Paul VI to John Paul II in 1996, when 50 years of priestly ordination of Pope. His words were published in L'Osservatore Romano on 15 November 1996).
The original article in Spanish (here)
"It is not easy to live the priesthood in jail or a concentration camp. God allowed that this was the way to carry the love of God to men of Fr Anton Luli for over 40 years of ministry. " Anton Luli was born in Albania the year 1910. God called him to join the Society of Jesus, which received priestly ordination in 1946. Albania, their homeland, had lived the drama of World War II. Expel the invaders, the country was under the sway of a railway communist dictatorship. Many priests were imprisoned and shot. On December 19, 1947 he was arrested and locked in a small room and cold. This Christmas, for him, were a real ordeal of pain, but with the strange peace that can only come from a faith intense and cordial. Many years later received at the Vatican, Pope Paul VI in the classroom, which had been the experience:
"The night of Christmas this year - how could forget? - I pulled out of that place and I took another bathroom on the second floor of the prison, forced me to undress and I hung with a rope that I passed under armpits. I was naked and could barely touch the ground with the tip of the feet. I felt my body slowly and inexorably falter. The cold I climbed slowly through the body and the chest when he arrived and was parárseme for the heart, I launched a cry of agony. They went my executioners, I fell and I am filled with kicks. That night, in that place and at the loneliness of that first ordeal, I experienced the true meaning of the incarnation and the cross. "After 17 years in prison rose to a forced labor camp in an area of marshland. After a brief release, he was arrested again in 1979 and sentenced to death: he had been accused of sabotage and propaganda against the government. Capital punishment was commuted to 25 years in prison.
Political changes in Eastern Europe also arrived, albeit with enormous problems and delays, the small republic of Albania. Fr Luli was released in 1989. He was 79 years old. A few days after leaving prison found one of those who had been their executioners. Again we tell him what happened at that time: "I've never saved rancour towards those who, humanly speaking, I stole life. After liberation, I met by chance in the street with one of my tormentors: I felt compassion for him, I went to meet them and embrace it. " The life of Fr Luli, their particular way of living the priesthood, reminds one of the privileges of any minister of Christ: love to give their lives for friends.
Thousands of priests have offered blood by their communities. Thousands of priests, martyrdoms and atrocious "fast", or martyrdom in this long and difficult pursuits more or less subtle, have united to Christ crucified and have shown that the strength of love. Fr Luli lived with simplicity and hope his priestly vocation in a position humanly unbearable.We return to his words, his testimony, backed by years of pain who knew how to sow Christian love: "This is my priestly experience in all these years, an experience certainly very particular regarding the many priests, but certainly not unique: thousands are priests that their lives have suffered persecution because of the priesthood of Christ . Diverse experiences, but all united by love. The priest is above all a person who has known love, the priest is a man who lives for love, to love Christ and to love everyone in it, in any situation in life, even giving their lives. "
(Father Anton Luli evoked the testimony of his priestly life in the Classroom Paul VI to John Paul II in 1996, when 50 years of priestly ordination of Pope. His words were published in L'Osservatore Romano on 15 November 1996).
The original article in Spanish (here)
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