Forgiveness Makes You Free
A Dramatic Story of Healing and Reconciliation from the Heart of Rwanda
by Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga
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Pub Date 8 Mar 2019 | Archive Date 13 Jan 2021
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Description
“‘Jesus, where are you?’ I prayed every night as I wept . . . I felt I had failed as a priest, for I had preached love and the people made genocide. . . .Then I heard God speak to me. Jesus wanted me to use these experiences to evangelize later. It was then that I knew my life would be spared. God would make a way.”
During the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga tells the dramatic story of how he survived while losing more than eighty of his family members and 45,000 of his parishioners in the killings. In the aftermath, Fr. Ubald experienced a renewed sense of purpose as a minister of reconciliation and a healing evangelist in his homeland and around the world. In Forgiveness Makes You Free, he offers five spiritual principles that can help those traumatized by the past to experience healing and peace in Christ.
In 1994 the world looked on in disbelief and horror as Rwanda erupted in violent bloodshed. All across the landlocked African country, militant Hutus rose up to exterminate the Tutsi population, including women and young children. One hundred days later, a million bodies littered fields, streets, and even churches. Now, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a powerful testimony emerges of the power of God to bring peace and reconciliation into hearts full of fear and hate.
In Forgiveness Makes You Free, Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga shares his own dramatic story of how he survived the genocide and its traumatic aftermath. He testifies about how God spared his life so that he might help others with deep physical, emotional, and spiritual wounds to experience peace and healing. In retelling the story of how he forgave the man who killed his family and cared for the man’s children while he was in prison, Fr. Ubald demonstrates how showing mercy can facilitate true forgiveness even in the most painful circumstances of our lives.
Throughout the book, Fr. Ubald teaches about five spiritual keys that draw us to Christ, the only source of lasting peace:
be thankful and have faithchoose to forgivedenounce evildecide to live for Jesusclaim the blessingEach chapter combines Fr. Ubald’s story with reflection questions that guide readers along their own path of healing: from fear to faith, from shame to freedom, from isolation to reconciliation, from resentment to mercy, and from conflict to peace.
The final chapter offers a guided meditation to help those who need to experience the power of God to release those held in bondage by fear and hate and to find the secret of peace. An appendix contains information about “The Mushaka Reconciliation Project,” a catechetical tool that has been used successfully by parishes in Rwanda, and could easily be adapted by parishes in the United States, to mediate reconciliation between individuals and groups who have become estranged by violence, trauma, and ethnic or cultural divisions.
A Note From the Publisher
Fr. Ubald continues to focus his ministry on healing and evangelization. He travels the world offering Masses with healing prayers, from which there are many documented cases of physical, spiritual, relational, and emotional healings.
Advance Praise
“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
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781594718717 |
| PRICE | US$16.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 192 |
Featured Reviews
Janet P, Reviewer
I loved this book! I was hesitant about starting it because the Rwandan genocide was so horrifying but Father Ubald (most of whose family and congregation were killed) is so full of wisdom, love, and forgiveness, just reading the book is an act of healing.
Not only did I love the spiritual wisdom that poured from it, I loved that his balanced view and many eyewitness accounts he shared gave new insight into this tragic event and the healing that has come through the hard work of many Rwandans, including Father Ubald.
Reviewer 451445
This book covers the Rwandan genocide of 1994. I can remember the media coverage at the time and witnessed only a tiny proportion of the horrors perpetrated there. How do you forgive genocidal bloodthirsty maniacs who have slaughtered family, church and population in one of the worst cases of so called ethic cleansing ever? How do you react when God asks you to forgive and help others do the same? You follow the words of Fr. Ubald...
"As I looked up at the face of Jesus, an inner voice said to me, "Ubald, accept your cross also." I breathed deeply, and I made a decision to carry my cross as well. I would carry the cross of genocide, the cross of one who had preached love in a parish that had been destroyed by genocide. It was time to stop weeping and allow God to heal my wounds so that I could help others who needed healing from their wounds. From that moment, it was as though light radiated from within me. Long ago I had made the choice to forgive, knowing that it was necessary for me to move on and do what God wanted me to do with my life."
To read this book and follow Fr. Ubald's story and other eyewitness accounts is to enter into a world which will be alien to so many who haven't really been touched by persecution. It made me feel like I've only really been playing at Christianity. It made me question what I'd do if I'd lived through such brutal times and faced such impossible situations. Read it if you want to know what forgiveness really means, what it takes to forgive those who have slaughtered family and friends and how such forgiveness is the way to personal peace and renewed hope.
Read it to learn of a kind of resistance to evil which turns the world on its head...
"Perhaps for the first time, I understood what it meant to forgive seventy times seven without hesitation or limitations....Of course there would be temptations to deny that decision. But I also knew that evil is real and that we must resist it with forgiveness."
The voices of the blood of martyrs are heard here and every Christian is duty bound to listen. Get a copy and read it and expect to be disturbed, provoked and challenged. I don't shed tears easily but this book changed me. I would like to re-read it but will wait awhile first to process what I've already read. God has given Fr. Ubald a ministry of healing and reconciliation worldwide and back in Rwanda. The church and the world needs to listen and let God heal its wounds also. In years to come I will place this on a small list of books that have changed my life.
Thanks to NetGalley and Ave Marie Press for ARC.
Shannan H, Reviewer
Forgiveness. Seems easier said than done. Most of us have someone to forgive, buy try to forgive someone that has killed your mother or father. Father Rugiranoga had to do that. His father was killed when he was a child, and his mother was killed during the Rwandan Genocide in the mid 1990's. In this book, not only does he talk about his story, but he talks about others who he has help to learn to forgive, including some of the people who were doing the killing during that time.
This book will put your feelings and emotions in check as you read some of the sad and heartwrenching stories that are provided. This was such an inspiring and amazing book.
I received a free copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review.
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