Montesegur Day

On March 16th 1244 a fire burned at the base of a mountain known as "The Pog"* in the heart of the Languadoc region in Southern France. Around 220 souls were marched into that fire. The fortress here at the top of the mountain was where the Cathars put up their last temporal resistance for their life and their faith - for the right to live and practice a spirituality that for them connected them to their destiny in light, truth, love and gnosis.

For them, to deny this connection was to deny their own souls. For them, it made more sense to face the fires at the feet of unknowing faces and empty eyes then to turn away from the light of the Good God.

I can't imagine what it must have been like. What kind of doubts if any were had by these people of the Languadoc. If the soldiers who carried this out felt anything when they saw the eyes of children as they looked to their mother's and fathers in bewilderment.

What I do know is that they are not forgotten.

* It's interesting to note that the mountain's name "The Pog" and it's similarity to the word "pogrom" which means an organized massacre of an ethnic group. I don't know if this is a coincidence or if the terms are somehow historically connected.