Women for the World | Immaculée Ilibagiza Shares her Story

Enliven, Cathedral High School’s faith and service club, invited Catholic speaker, author, and Rwandan genocide-surviror Immaculée Ilibagiza to speak with the Cathedral community, thanks to a generous grant from the Koch Foundation. Immaculée recorded her experience in her New York Times Bestseller, Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust. Her story has also been made into a documentary entitled The Diary of Immaculée. This week, Immaculée visited Cathedral to share her story with our young women in person. 

As she ascended the stairs of the stage, holding a rosary in hand, Immaculée looked out at her audience and remarked that she also attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Rwanda. She shared, “To see you is like ‘I’m back!’” She explained to our Cathedralites that she wanted to share her story with young people because of the many lessons she learned as she experienced an intense interior change over the course of the three months she was in hiding. She also expressed gratitude for schools with faith, which not only educate the mind, but also foster the capacity to love: “You can learn as much as you want, but if your heart's not in the right place, the head can only damage.” She encouraged students to love God and to “live a life that God is proud of.”

Immaculée shared lessons of forgiveness, impact, gratitude, and faith by weaving stories of her suffering and anecdotes about her family throughout her explanation of the political situation in Rwanda. During Easter break in 1994, when she was in college, Immaculée visited home. Early one morning, her family heard the breaking news of their president’s assassination and soon understood that destruction and death were imminent. Immaculée witnessed all types of people from her village, even ones who did not belong to her family’s tribe, rush to her parents’ house to seek advice, because her parents were trustworthy and kind. She encouraged our students to be grateful for their families, because they are a gift. “I never thought that they could be taken from me all at once,” she shared, because within weeks, both of her parents and two of her three brothers were killed in the genocide. 

Immaculée soon went into hiding at a local pastor’s house: she was squished into a tiny bathroom, measuring 3 x 4 ft, with seven other women. While she was in hiding, Immaculée faced two choices: she could give up, or she could keep praying, trusting that God can do anything, even if it seems too late or impossible. The 91 days spent in hiding were intensely transformational; without even speaking aloud, Immaculée became a new person inside, and learned about the power of prayer and forgiveness. 

But during the first week, anger and hate began to spread and fester inside of her like poison. 

In the bathroom, the women could not speak or even make noise, for fear of being discovered. In her head, Immaculée began to pray the rosary her father had given her; and for the first time since going into hiding, she began to feel peace. Immaculée would pray 27 rosaries a day, but she began to be bothered by the part of the Lord’s Prayer that offers forgiveness to those who have hurt us. She decided to skip over that part of the prayer until she heard a voice remind her that ‘Our Lord’s Prayer is not man made.’ 

Immaculée shared the true story of the apparition of Our Lady of Kibeho with Cathedralites. The Virgin Mother appeared to high school girls in Rwanda just twelve years before the genocide. She warned them of the destruction of their country and implored them to pray the rosary everyday and practice their faith. Immaculée encouraged all Cathedrlaites to pray the rosary, the prayer of peace, and added, “Mary says, ‘Don’t pray the rosary as a Catholic; pray it as my children.’”

Immaculée’s family never went to sleep without praying, and thinking about her father’s tremendous faith in God “did something to [her] fate” when she was in hiding. Because her dad was a teacher, her home was also like a school, and she remembers countless lessons that he taught his children: always make a choice to judge people individually; don’t just put them in a box; keep your heart open. When facing the news of the destruction of her country and tribe, Immaculée remembers that her father said, “If it’s the government, we’re going to be killed, so let’s ask God for forgiveness for our sins! Do not be afraid! We will go to heaven.” 

Her father’s faith and example seemed crazy to her at the time. But while she was in the bathroom, Immaculée learned about surrendering to God for the first time in her life. She began to read the Bible to find out the personality of God, and the stories of the sufferings of Job and Daniel spoke to her. Most importantly, she read the Passion of Christ, and it became clear to her that God is close to the one who’s suffering. Christ’s incredible and merciful works rang through Immaculée’s head: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

In the bathroom, she realized that she could accept her suffering and give it to God, or reject it. She told the students, “You do not need to speak or even know the name of someone in order to love one another,” and “your individual decisions impact others.” Immaculée asked our students questions which she asked herself when she was in hiding, unsure of whether her family members were alive or dead:

Can I forgive or not? Can I be a loving person or not?

Over the course of three months, 1 million people were killed in Rwanda, including Immaculée’s parents and two of her brothers. When reflecting on one of her brothers in particular, she shared incredible stories of his generosity, selflessness, and attention to others, and said, “I know his life was not cut short, because he used his heart to love.” We will be judged by how much we loved, moment by moment; love is the only thing that can change the world for the better, in small ways. For this reason, Immaculée actually visited the man who killed her mother and brothers in prison to tell him, “I forgive you.” 

Immaculée’s final message was one of faith and hope in God. “God is our only hope individually and collectively,” she shared. “God said he will bind our wounds; He never said we wouldn’t get wounded.” Looking out at the crowd of young women, she told them, “Every time I speak to a group, I know I’m speaking to individuals, and every individual carries the cross—but there is always hope in God.”

We will continue to reflect on her words and allow them to bear fruit in our deeds of love, forgiveness, and kindness towards one another. The Cathedral community is deeply moved by Immaculée’s story and example of forgiveness and trust in God. We are so grateful to Ms. Hughes, faculty moderator of Enliven, for organizing this event, and to the Koch Foundation, for their generous grant support for our speaker series, which made this event possible!