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Your three martyred sons are alive! They live in God, for whose love they shed their innocent blood. They live forever in the grateful memory of the Church, their Mother – that their sacrifice honoured so greatly.

I can tell that your hearts enlightened by faith were elated with holy joy, but that your eyes shed tears. I would not accuse those tears of weakness. Mary wept for Jesus on Calvary and Jesus wept for Lazarus, for he loved him. How could I forbid a father, a mother, to grieve their son?

Your excellent son, your parishioner, received the supreme honour of shedding his blood for God’s sake and for the love of his fellows.

Our Lady of Africa is, indeed, not only the Queen of the present and the future. She is also the Queen of the past, the Queen of Cyprian, Augustine, Optat, Fulgence, Felicity, Perpetua, the Doctors, the Pontiffs, the Martyrs, the Virgins who embalmed this noble soil with the perfume of their virtues and their blood.