Feast of Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

Lectionary: 618

Whoever serves me must follow me,
and where I am, there also will my servant be.
The Father will honor whoever serves me.”

When I was a boy in the 1950's, I heard that the Age of Martyrs had ended. The Church seemed to be at peace with the postwar era, following the carnage of World War II.  

But we seem suddenly inundated with fresh testimonies of Catholic martyrs in Central America, North Africa, and Asia. Some of the older friars of my province studied with Father Casimir Cypher, from Wisconsin, who was murdered in 1975. I remember their concern when we heard he was missing, and our prayers for his safety. I recently met a friar who was hunted along with Friars Michał Tomaszek and Zbigniew Adam Strzałkowsk in Peru on August 9, 1991 by the Communist "Shining Path" in Peru. He was not with them when they were kidnapped and summarily executed. Mother Angelica's Catholic News Agency has a recent story about the African martyrs of 2022. 

In the wake of these stories, I have come to believe that if the "Age of Martyrs" ever comes to an end, the Church will have lost its Spirit. If I was told little about martyrs during the 1950's, there were probably political reasons for that. But even a brief Google search discovers long lists of Christian victims of Communism. 

Ideologies are hateful things; they breed suspicion, hostility, violence, and murder. Whether they are Communism, Nazism, Fascism, Racism, Feminism, Gay ideology, or some ultra form of liberal or conservative religion (Catholic, Christian, Jewish, or Muslim), they destroy people. Because they need to hate. 

Invariably they justify their violence with the claim of being victims. They have suffered beneath older "ideologies" which no one had ever noticed. Things like capitalism, patriarchy, or homophobia. Words like wealth, man, white, male, and father represent despicable enemies to these self-identified victims. In some cases they must create new words like heterosexual and cis in order to identify their enemies. The rhetoric may help to identify systemic problem and to call for needed reforms, but their sweeping search for antagonists in every closet create a polarized conversation which results in stalemate and little progress. 

These ideologies are particularly loathsome when they redefine martyrdom. They describe murderers as martyrs when they blow themselves up or, enlisting with non-government militias, are destroyed by government forces. Real soldiers may fight for good causes, but let's not call them martyrs. 

Martyrs don't kill anyone for any reason. They are placed in a predicament in which they must either renounce their fidelity to God or suffer death. In most cases, their enemies deny the killing has anything to do with truth, faith or religion. They are called "enemies of the state" for opposing the king's adultery, or the murder of Jews, or abortion. 

They follow in the footsteps of Jesus because they cannot deny their faith in the One who could not deny himself, as Saint Paul said. 

We stand with them, and hope we are worthy of their company, for we cannot deny our Baptism. That indelible sign remains deeply in our hearts and shines through our behavior, whether we live in a friendly or hostile country. 

But hearing stories from around the world, we pray for ourselves and our children, that we will be ready to stand with the martyrs when and if that violence come for us.