A martyr journalist

As you will all know, James Foley, an American journalist captured by jihadists in 2012, was barbarously beheaded on a demonic video by a masked British jihadist. The Catholic Herald informs us that he was Catholic, and he had not lost his faith. After a previous kidnapping in 2011 in Libya, he wrote:

I kept telling (my colleague) Clare my mom had a strong faith. I prayed she’d know I was OK. I prayed I could communicate through some cosmic reach of the universe to her. I began to pray the rosary. It was what my mother and grandmother would have prayed. 
I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father. It took a long time, almost an hour to count 100 Hail Marys off on my knuckles. And it helped to keep my mind focused. Clare and I prayed together out loud. It felt energising to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone.

The video is something we should not watch; it is enough to know it exists. However there are many stills from the video showing him kneeling before his cowardly-masked murderer, calm and with head held high. It is not too much to believe, surely, that he was again praying the rosary on mental beads. If so, we can be sure Mary was advocate for him at the hour of his death, and can justifiably hope that soon he will be before the throne of the true God, washed clean in the blood of the Lamb.

On that day, may he pray for us. Until then, we should (rosary in hand) pray for him: requiescat in pace. 

James Foley

And may Satan’s laughter soon be silenced.