The
world seems to be in flames right now, as I write this. War and disease are
ravaging many parts of the world. Especially in mind, though, are those
Christians who are being killed by the sword in Syria and Iraq. They are
victims of violence and hatred, and, yet, they are witnesses to hope, to love,
to grace and to life. There is one who once died and who rose again from the
dead – the one Jesus Christ. That One who conquered death, the “Living One,” is
he who holds “the keys of Death and Hades,” and who tells us, “Do not be
afraid. (Rev. 1:17-18 NRSVCE)”
All
human life is precious, infinitely and immeasurably valuable. God shows no
partiality in whom he deems valuable. “’Have I any pleasure in the death of the
wicked,’ says the Lord, ‘but rather that they should turn from their ways and
live?’ (Ezek. 18:23)” God takes no pleasure in death, not of any sinner, nor of
the saint. Not even of the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father was
pleasurable. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not a god of insatiable
desire for blood. He is a God of insatiable desire for love: “[…] live in love,
as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and
sacrifice to God. (Eph. 5:2 NRSVCE)”
Martyrs
are witnesses, as the Greek word means (μάρτυς). They are witnesses in the highest regard to the truth
of reality itself, that all things have their being and their end in Christ; he
is the all in all, the alpha and the omega. Pope St. John Paul II once wrote
the following about martyrs in his encyclical, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason):
The martyrs know that they have
found the truth about life in the encounter with Jesus Christ, and nothing and
no-one could ever take this certainty from them. Neither suffering nor violent
death could ever lead them to abandon the truth which they have discovered in
the encounter with Christ. […] This is why their word inspires such confidence:
from the moment they speak to us of what we perceive deep down as the truth we
have sought for so long, the martyrs provide evidence of a love that has no
need of lengthy arguments in order to convince. (32)
Here, St. John Paul II pinpointed the active motive of
martyrs in Christ, that they die out of love for God, having faith in the
“Living One” who has given his life, so that they might live. “I am the
Resurrection and the Life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he
live,” Christ said. (John 11:25) Those who have had faith and give their lives
in witness to the truth, are giving witness to their encounter with Christ, who
is Truth and Love itself. The Church has had many witnesses who have shed their
blood out of love. This act of faith is the sweet aroma, the “fragrant
offering” to God; that is, their love of God above all else, including life
itself.
Among
some holy examples of martyrdom are Sts. Peter, Lawrence and Maximilian Kolbe. In
their day, and even now, they are witnesses to the encounter with a loving God.
By their light, we see and know that truth calling to our inmost being.
St.
Peter, prime apostle and friend of our Lord, was told by Christ himself that one
day he, too, would die as Christ did. At Christ’s last appearance in St. John’s
Gospel, we read that Christ directly asked Peter, “Do you love me?” to which
Peter replied, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. (John 21:15)” Jesus asked
Peter this three times. Upon receiving the same answer three times, Jesus then
told Peter, “’Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten
your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will
stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take
you where you do not wish to go. […] Follow me.’ (John 21:18,19 NRSVCE)” St.
John tells us that by saying this, Jesus signified how St. Peter would die.
Later, after many years of feeding the sheep of Christ’s church, he died at the
hands of the Romans, by being crucified up-side-down. It is believed he
requested the inverted crucifixion, because he did not believe himself worthy
to die exactly as our Lord died, by crucifixion right side up.
St.
Lawrence was a deacon in the mid-third century, under Pope Sixtus II. Pope
Sixtus II was martyred first, along with six other deacons of the Church in
Rome. It is reported that the prefect of the Emperor demanded St. Lawrence
bring remaining riches of gold or silver used during the Mass to him for
Caesar. Yet, when St. Lawrence appeared before the prefect, he presented the
maimed, lame, poor and ill and said, “These are the riches of the Church.” He
was then martyred by way of being roasted to death upon a gridiron. While
roasting, he allegedly said, “I’m well done. Turn me over.” The Church has
highly honored him as a great witness to the Gospel of Christ, having died with
the joy of Christ in his heart and in his deeds.
St.
Maximilian Kolbe is a modern-day martyr, having died at the hands of the Nazis
in Auschwitz. He was declared, by Pope Paul VI, as a confessor of the faith and
“martyr of charity.” Pope St. John Paul II declared and canonized him clearly a
martyr of the faith at the hands of those seeking the destruction of all faith.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Maximilian Kolbe gave his life to
Christ as a priest, and fought diligently against the fierce forces of Nazism
and other godless philosophies in the world.
After the Nazis invaded Poland,
Maximilian Kolbe resisted all efforts of the Nazi persecution and kept
spreading the faith of the Church with zeal. He was arrested and brought to
Auschwitz in 1941. There, one day, a Nazi commander demanded the life of ten random
inmates in vengeance for an attempted escape. One man, who was selected from
among Kolbe’s peers, immediately upon being chosen cried out, “My wife and my
children!” At that moment, Kolbe stepped out of line, in faith, though risking
immediate execution. He walked up to the commander and requested to take the
man’s place in death. The commander was stunned silent, but ultimately agreed.
Kolbe then spent the next two weeks in a starvation bunker, all the while
leading the other prisoners in prayer and hymns, until he was the last
remaining. The guards eventually grew impatient and killed him by injection of
carbolic acid, which he readily accepted. All of this was recorded by a Nazi
translator and guard at the bunker. Kolbe died out of love for his neighbor,
for Christ, the Church and the Blessed Virgin.
Right now, the Christians and other
whole groups of people in Iraq and Syria are being murdered and martyred in the
name of religion. The failure on the murderers’ parts is that they do not
realize whom they are persecuting. “Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”
Jesus said to St. Paul before his conversion. They are persecuting the Living
One, who has gained victory over all, and now shares that victory with us who
believe. Those who have died in faith have gone on to be with the Resurrection
and the Life. They have gone on to be glorified because of their love. For us
who remain, let us do all we can, especially to pray, for those who continue to
be persecuted, for their strength and the grace that they may endure. We must
not be afraid, just as Christ taught us. Let us, too, pray for the persecutors,
for their conversion of heart from these horrific atrocities they commit.
Nothing else will change them except the encounter with the God of Love.
Sts. Peter, Lawrence and Maximilian
Kolbe all gave us pure lights of faith, hope and love. Let us remember them as
we seek the grace of God, and ask for their intercession on behalf of all those
unjustly killed. Let us, too, be reminded that the call of Christ to follow him
is no mere story to make us feel good or even to teach the morality of love;
the call of Christ is to die for sake of love, in every real sense and every
real sacrifice – to hand over to him our entire beings.
But we have this treasure in clay
jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God
and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death
of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For
while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that
the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death
is at work in us, but life in you.
-- 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NRSVCE
St. Peter, pray for us.
St. Lawrence, pray for us.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.
All you Martyrs in Christ, pray for us.
Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners.
Amen. +
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