Video project, four years in the works, seeks to tell the story of those who bravely risked everything for the sake of Jesus
ANN ARBOR — The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, have released an original video mini-series honoring the 22 brave and virtuous young Ugandan converts who were martyred in the late 1800s for their Christian faith.
"The Ugandan Martyrs" — released June 3, the martyrs' feast day — consists of 24 “bite-sized episodes,” each three to eight minutes long. It is a product of Openlight Media, a multimedia platform that offers a curriculum and other educational tools to teach virtues.
The Uganda martyrs, who include St. Charles Lwanga, are a great example of a Christian life lived fully, Sr. John Dominic Rasmussen, OP, executive director of Openlight Media in Ann Arbor, told Detroit Catholic.
“There is no way you can watch it without being inspired and moved because martyrs experienced a deep, profound conversion that they knew the person of Jesus,” Sr. John Dominic explained. “They were so young and had this deep interconnection with Christ, so they had the courage and fortitude to resist the sin and lust that the king wanted in the culture.”
Sr. John Dominic said the series has been four years in the making, beginning with the group of Ugandan priests who serve the local community in Ann Arbor and surrounding areas, who expressed their concern that the story of the Ugandan martyrs would be lost to the younger generations.
“We had conversations with them about how we can preserve this rich history,” Sr. John Dominic explained. “The priests were happy to work with us because the martyrs are not only the models that they need in Uganda, but also I would say, in our own day, here in the United States and throughout the world, we need the witness of their lives — that they were willing to suffer martyrdom as opposed to succumb to things that were contrary to what they believe to live fully as a Christian.”
Each episode includes motion graphics and original illustrations of each of the martyrs, created by Dominican Sr. Emmanuel Gross.
The series is hosted by Ugandan priest Fr. Nicholas Sseggobe, and Openlight Media recruited five young first-generation Ugandans from Michigan to tell the stories of the martyrs. Sr. John Dominic said the young Ugandan storytellers were honored to participate in the series. Many wore traditional Ugandan garb and expressed that being part of the series helped them deepen their connection with their Ugandan heritage.
“It was a very personal experience for them,” Sr. John Dominic said. “Many of the (martyrs’) names are complicated to pronounce, so they’d call their parents to ask how to pronounce them. On the sets, we had things that they had from their homes that were traditional and tied back to their country and culture. We felt that would really make it rich.”
The ever-growing Ugandan Catholic community of Michigan has been supportive of the project, Sr. John Dominic said, and even gathered together early in June to watch the series as a community.
Sr. John Dominic hopes that by learning about the brave Ugandan martyrs, people will walk away from the series with a concrete example of how to live virtuously.
“Their love for Jesus and their hope of eternal life is a great thing for this Jubilee Year of Hope,” Sr. John Dominic said. “By having hope in eternal life and trusting in all that Jesus had done for their salvation, they were willing to make that journey to walk to their martyrdom. The hope is that the series can help the people of Uganda, as a country and around the world, to hold onto a legacy of their martyrs, and also at the same time, we would also be able to inspire our youth in our own country today.”
