Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: martyrs

  • Holy Innocents, Martyrs

    Holy Innocents, Martyrs

    Today’s readings

    On the face of it, this is just a horrible feast. The slaughter of many innocent children is a stark and frightening juxtaposition to the joy and glory of the Christmas Octave. The numbers of children actually murdered is variously estimated. Early estimates were in the thousands, but more modern estimates limit the victims to twenty or less, due to the relatively small size of the community of Bethlehem and the surrounding vicinity. But let’s think about that proportionally: Plainfield’s population is about 15 times the population of Bethlehem at that time. So if 300 children were murdered here, the loss and horror would be devastating. That’s what was going on in Bethlehem at that time.

    As I said, in some ways, this is a horrible feast. But the Church, in recognizing the contribution of the Holy Innocents to the kingdom, asserts that this is just the beginning of the world’s seeing the glory of Jesus Christ. Even in the horror of this event, innocent children bear witness to the Child Jesus.  St. Quodvoltdeus, an African bishop of the fifth century writes of them:

    The children die for Christ, though they do not know it. The parents mourn for the death of martyrs. The Christ child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself. But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious. While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

    To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

    Maybe the key is in the first reading. The line that really caught me is “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.” We can see all kinds of darkness in an event like the murder of even twenty innocent children. Yet only God could turn something that horrible around to his glory. They may have lived extremely short lives on earth, yet their lives in eternity were secured forever. They become some of the first to participate in the kingdom that Christ would bring about through his Paschal Mystery.

  • Saint Agnes, Virgin Martyr

    Saint Agnes, Virgin Martyr

    Today’s readings

    There are a lot of saints in today’s Mass, but then, honestly, there always are.  Father John and I have an ongoing joke, that when one of us has the early 6:30 Mass, we say to the other, “I woke up the angels and saints for you.”  Now, obviously the angels and saints aren’t sleeping in the church, but they are in the church, and especially whenever we celebrate Mass.  We can’t see them, but they are all around the altar, praising God for the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross that we remember at Mass, and helping us to lift up our own voices in prayer.  This is the “communion of saints” that we talk about when we say the Apostles’ Creed during the Rosary or sometimes at Mass.

    Today we have two mentions of saints.  The first is the saint we celebrate today, Saint Agnes, a Virgin and Martyr of the early Church.  That’s the reason for the red vestments today.  She lived probably around the third century.  Legend tells us that Agnes was a young girl, probably twelve or thirteen years old, and very beautiful.  Many young men longed for her, lusted after her, really, and one such man, having looked at her lustfully, lost his eyesight.  But his sight was restored when Agnes herself prayed for him.

    Because of her dedication to Christ, she refused the advances of the men who lusted after her.  And one such man, having been refused, reported her to the government for being a Christian.  She was arrested and eventually put to death, although the method of her death is unclear.  She was buried near Rome in a catacomb that was then named in her honor, and Constantine’s daughter later built a basilica in her honor.  Her witness is that her dedication to Christ was most important in her life, and she had vowed to live a life of virginity in honor of that.

    The second mention of saints comes in the Gospel today, in which Jesus, at the early point of his ministry, calls those who followed him, and Appointed the Twelve Apostles.  Mr. Hueg tells me that I can ask the seventh graders to list all of the Apostles because they just had a quiz on that exact topic!  Then again, I could probably ask the eighth graders because I’m sure they’ll remember from last year!  Seriously, though, we know the importance of the apostles.  Because they risked their lives to witness to Christ – all of them except John dying a martyr’s death – because of their witness, we have the faith today.  Because of their faith, we can live and witness to our faith too.

    Both Saint Agnes and Saints Peter, James, John and the others, all of them lived their lives for Christ and all of them gave their lives to witness to Christ.  That’s a good inspiration for the way we should live.  God has given us everything we have, and more than that, he has given us the opportunity to choose eternal life and come to be one with him one day.  Even if we never have the opportunity to actually die for Christ, we are called to give ourselves in love to him, and to witness to his Gospel no matter what it costs us.

    The other thing that Saint Agnes has in common with the Apostles is that they are all mentioned in the words of Eucharistic Prayer I, which I will be using today.  When I pray it, see if you can hear the names of Agnes, Peter, James, Andrew, Philip and the others.  And when you hear them, give God thanks that he allowed them to give their lives so that we might have the faith.  And thank God that he gave his only Son to show us the way to heaven.

    Saint Agnes and the Apostles, pray for us!

  • Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Well, the story we started to hear in yesterday’s first reading about Israel has festered a bit.  You may remember yesterday that king Antiochus Epiphanes began to lead the people to follow the ways of the Gentiles: covering over their circumcision, attending schools in the Gentile way of life, abandoning the holy laws.  In today’s reading, it’s getting real.  Eleazar the scribe, in his nineties, is being forced to eat pork in violation of the law.  When he refuses to do so, some of those who know and respect him urge him to pretend to eat it so as to escape punishment.

    But Eleazar is a man of wisdom, and he knows that if he pretends to violate the law to save his life, he will be leading others astray.  Those of lesser years than he would be led to scandal and sin because of him.  He may save his life, but theirs would be forever ruined on his account.  Not to mention, he would lose his life with God.

    What we are hearing in the book of Maccabees these days is that there is something more important than our own lives.  Life is sacred and a wonderful gift, but it is completely meaningless if we live it at the cost of our spiritual lives.  And when it comes right down to it, is that really living at all?

    Martyrs throughout the ages have given witness to the fact that there is something more, that this life is not all we have.  For Eleazar it was the law.  For Christian martyrs it is Jesus Christ.  But it is always, always about God who made us for himself, who created us to be reasonably happy in this life, but supremely happy with him forever in the next.

  • Holy Innocents, Martyrs

    Holy Innocents, Martyrs

    Today’s readings

    Right here in the middle of the joy of the Christmas Octave, we have the feast of what seems to be an incredibly horrible event.  All of the male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem two years old and younger are murdered by the jealous and, quite frankly, rather pathetic Herod.  But not only are his plans to kill the Christ Child (and thus remove any threat to his reign) thwarted by the providence of God, but also the horror of this event is transfigured into something rather glorious in terms of the Kingdom of God.

    As I said, in some ways, this is a horrible feast.  And we can relate, I think.  Just think about the millions who have been slaughtered by abortion, and the many children who die in inner-city violence every year, and we see just how precarious childhood can be in every time and place.  But the Church, in recognizing the contribution of the Holy Innocents to the kingdom, turns all of this sadness into hope and asserts that this is just the beginning of the world’s seeing the glory of Jesus Christ.  As disgusting and repugnant as Herod’s actions are to our sensibilities, yet these innocent children bear witness to the Child Jesus.  Saint Quodvoltdeus, an African bishop of the fifth century writes of them:

    The children die for Christ, though they do not know it.  The parents mourn for the death of martyrs.  The Christ child makes of those as yet unable to speak fit witnesses to himself.  But you, Herod, do not know this and are disturbed and furious.  While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

    To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory?  They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ.  They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory.

    I think the key to making sense of all this is in the first reading.  The line that really catches me, because it seems almost erroneous in light of the horrible event we remember today, is “God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.”  We can see all kinds of darkness in an event like the murder of innocent children.  Yet only God could turn something that horrible around to his glory.  They may have lived extremely short lives on earth, yet their lives in eternity were secured forever.  They become some of the first to participate in the kingdom that Christ would bring about through his Paschal Mystery.

  • Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs

    Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs

    Today’s readings

    In the 1800s, Andrew Kim became the first native Korean to become a priest when he traveled 1300 miles to seminary in China. He managed to find his way back into the country six years later. When he returned home, he arranged for more men to travel to China for studies. He was arrested, tortured and finally beheaded.

    St. Paul Chong was a lay apostle who was also martyred. During the persecutions of 1839, 1846, 1866 and 1867, 103 members of the Christian community gave their lives for the faith. These included some bishops and priests, but for the most part they were lay people, including men and women, married and unmarried, children, young people and the elderly. They were all canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II during a visit to Korea in 1984.

    Our gospel today reminds us that those who hear and act on God’s word are the ones who are member’s of Christ’s family. This reminds me of yesterday’s Gospel which told us to “be careful how you hear.” We have to hear the words with hearts willing to do whatever it is that God asks of us. The Korean martyrs did this at the cost of their own lives. May we be as willing to give of ourselves today as they were in that day.

  • Memorial Day

    Memorial Day

    Today’s readings.

    One of the effects of a presidential election year for me, is taking a long hard look at who we hold up as our leaders or our heroes.  In some ways, a presidential election is an emergence of whoever is the least objectionable candidate, because in this day and age, it’s hard to get good people to run for office.  And who could blame them?  It’s so hard for candidates to deal with all that public scrutiny, the months of campaigning, the financial outlay.  It seems sometimes that those willing to go through all of that aren’t exactly the cream of the crop.  But apply that to any other field of interest.  What about our sports heroes, or entertainers?  How many of them turn out to be flawed in many ways?  The people we want to hold up as heroes are very often not very heroic.

    But today is a day to celebrate true heroes. Memorial Day originally began in our country as an occasion to remember and decorate the graves of the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  Later it became a holiday to commemorate all those who had died in war in the service of our country.  So today we remember those men and women who have given their lives for peace, justice, and righteousness.  These have been people who have given everything, have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.   Just as Jesus in our Gospel today encourages us all to give everything for the Gospel, these people are true heroes because of their ultimate sacrifice.

    On this day, I think it would be a mistake to glorify warfare.  I don’t think that is the best way to honor the memories of those who have fallen in war.  Our Church’s teachings counsel that war is not the way to peace and that developed societies like ours can and must use our resources to seek other ways to solve problems.  But we have to acknowledge that there are and have been times in our nation’s history that have called on people to fight for our freedoms and to fight for justice.  Today we honor their memory with immense gratitude, because without their sacrifice we probably wouldn’t be free to worship today.

    Our heroes should always include those who have given their lives for justice, righteousness, and the faith.  Today, we might call to mind the great martyrs of the Church, those who have shed their own blood that we might have the Gospel.  Perhaps they inspired those who have given their lives in service to our country.

    Today we pray for those who have been part of our lives, part of the life of our Church, and the life of our country.  These are the ones who have been people of faith and integrity and are true heroes that God has given us.  These are the ones who have laid down their lives for what is right.  If we would honor them on this Memorial Day, we should believe as they have believed, we should live as they have lived, and we should rejoice that their memory points us to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our hope of eternal life.

  • Saint Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr

    Saint Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr

    Today’s readingslawrencefull1

    St. Lawrence was a deacon of the early Church, who was charged with the care of the goods of the Church.  Legend has it that he was called in by the Prefect of Rome, who had just killed Pope Sixtus, whose feast day we celebrated last week.  The Prefect told Lawrence that he wanted the treasures of the Church, since Christ didn’t bring any money into the world with him, and hence must not be important.  So Lawrence told him to give him a few days to inventory the goods of the Church.  Three days later, Lawrence assembled a large group of the widows, orphans, blind, lame and leprous.  He presented them to the Prefect saying, “Behold, these are the treasures of the Church.”  The Prefect was so angry, he ordered him to be killed, but, in his words “by inches,” meaning a slow and tortuous death.  Lawrence was bound to a gridiron and was roasted over coals.  At one point in the torture, Lawrence is said to have called out cheerfully, “I am done on this side, I think; you can turn me over now.”

    Whether or not that was the real story, the point is that Lawrence’s martyrdom illustrates a beautiful acceptance of Jesus’ call in the Gospel today: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”  We who would be followers of Christ are called to know what the real treasures of life are, and to be willing to sacrifice to protect them.