A news item came across the wires earlier this week. Since it had nothing to do with Barack Obama or Britney Spears the story received scant notice on these shores, back page mention if mentioned at all.
It happened anyway.
The name Ingrid Betancourt may ring a bell. She was among the hostages who were recently freed in a daring undercover military operation after having been held hostage for years by a terrorist group in her native Colombia. This past Saturday, she fulfilled a promise she had made during her time in captivity:
Accompanied by her mother, son and daughter, she went to Lourdes.
While what little coverage Ms. Betancourt’s story has received following her rescue has mostly focused on the Red Cross’ anger over its logo being used as part of the ruse to free the hostages, another cross has been rather ignored.
It was the one attached to the rosary Ms. Betancourt fashioned out of buttons and string during her captivity.
There is an inconvenient truth about Ms. Betancourt that makes her story less attractive, less sexy than modern news machine media prefers. It’s this insistence she has about mentioning how her deep faith carried her through the years of torture and abuse at the hands of her captors. Consider the following, as reported by CNS:
“I know I talk with God and God replies — people prefer to speak about the force of circumstances, rather than miracles, but I think miracles happen to everyone all the time,” said the ex-hostage, who also holds French citizenship. “I have to do two things: forget and find spiritual peace, and be able to forgive. When I do this, I’ll also have to recall my memories. But perhaps, in time, these won’t be so painful.”
Betancourt, who noted the Lourdes pilgrimage would be her last public appearance until she recuperated, said she had made a rosary from buttons and old string during her captivity.
Meanwhile, Betancourt told a French Catholic magazine, Le Pelerin (The Pilgrim), July 12 that she constantly had read the Bible as a hostage, “made many promises to the Virgin Mary,” and believed her faith had “constantly grown.”
“If I had not had the Lord at my side, I don’t think I could have overcome this suffering,” she said. “Being a hostage places you in a situation of constant humiliation. You are a victim of total arbitrariness and you get to know what’s most vile in the human spirit.
“Faced by this, there are two paths. You either let yourself grow ugly, bitter, peevish and vindictive, and let your heart fill with spite, or you choose the other path which Jesus showed us when he asked us to bless our enemies,” said Betancourt.
(For those who only accept their news from the Big Boys, Ms. Betancourt told the New York Times much the same thing.)
Laying aside all the snark over media priorities for something far more important, Ms. Betancourt is a woman to be honored and revered. May her light that shone through unimaginably dark times be looked upon as the miracle it is.
As is she.
