Telemachus stopped, in the Name of Christ,
the killing at the Colosseum
"This power of prayer can be illustrated by the story that goes back to the fourth century - the monk [Telemachus] living in a little remote village, spending most of his time in prayer... One day he heard the voice of God telling him to go to Rome... Weeks later, he arrived...at a time of a festival in Rome...He followed a crowd into the Coliseum, and then, there in the midst of this great crowd, he saw the gladiators come forth, stand before the Emperor, and say, 'We who are about to die salute you.' He realized they were going to fight to the death for the entertainment of the crowds. He cried out, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' And his voice was lost in the tumult there in the great Colosseum. And as the games began, he made his way down through the crowd and climbed over the wall and dropped to the floor of the arena. Suddenly the crowds saw this scrawny little figure making his way out to the gladiators and saying, over and over again, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' And they thought it was part of the entertainment, and at first they were amused. But then, when they realized it wasn't, they grew belligerent and angry. And as he was pleading with the gladiators, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' one of them plunged his sword into his body. And as he fell to the sand of the arena in death, his last words were, 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' And suddenly, a strange thing happened. The gladiators stood looking at this tiny form lying in the sand. A silence fell over the Colosseum. And then, someplace up in the upper tiers, an individual made his way to an exit and left, and the others began to follow. And in the dead silence, everyone left the Colosseum. That was the last battle to the death between gladiators in the Roman Colosseum. Never again did anyone kill or did men kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd. One tiny voice that could hardly be heard above the tumult. 'In the Name of Christ, stop!' It is something we could be saying to each other throughout the world today.
