Do You Have What It Takes To Be An Everyday Martyr?
These are everyday sermons, usually not the same sermons Deacon Michael delivered on Sundays. He takes the liberty of personally addressing the people who came to the 6:30 communion service, whom he loved so much, and who loved him.
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It is a question I have asked numerous times, of myself and occasionally you guys… youse guys. Um. Do you have what it takes to be a martyr?
What does it take to be a martyr? They come in today and they say, "John?" Naw, John doesn't care, he's old. Robert, you're a young 90, or soon will be. "If you continued to be a Catholic, we're going to kill you." "Oh don't do that! I'll become whatever you want. I'm not gonna... I don't want to die!"
Especially chopping my head off. I always thought that was kinda gruesome. Kinda messy, too. [referring to the Korean martyrs whose feast was being celebrated.]
Do we have it in ourselves to die for our faith? Do we have it in ourselves to become St. John? St. Robert? St. Jeannie? Although they would probably make a more formal name than that. Probably be St. Jean or something. Do we have it in us to die for our faith?
That's the easiest way to become a saint. Hey, Mayve, so you want to be a saint? Do you want to be the first... is there another Mayve, saint? Do you want to be the first St. Mayve? Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take you out there. We're gonna tell you that you can save your life, and we're going to kill you if you say, "No." In the meantime, we're going to encourage you by torturing you a little bit. But when we're finished, you're going to be a saint. Do we have it in us?
St. Paul talks about this and he gives us the perspective. "If God is for us, who can be against us." If God is bringing us to this, what is going to separate us from God? What is the thing that we have that separates us from God?
St. Paul lists all these things. He's convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, you've heard all of this. Nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
Are you willing to die? Real simple question. Are you willing to die for your faith? For Jesus? Someone comes in right now, there he is. He is going to kill one of you because you're Catholic. You're given a chance to go to whatever other place, but if you say. “No,” he's gonna kill you. Come on! Come on! You say, "Okay, I'm not going to give up my faith. I can't do it."
The question that always bothers me is the corollary to that question. I mean, it really seems kind of easy if someone walks in today and says to Wisdom, "I'm going to kill you for your faith, give it up." Wisdom says, "No problem. Where do you want to shoot me. I'll make sure that you have a pretty good aim. You want to chop my head off, I'll set up so it's real easy to do." But what if someone comes in and says, "I'm not going to kill you, but for your faith," I use this example a lot because I have children, "for your faith, Mayve," I'll pick on you, "I want you, and I am going to take from you, for the rest of your life, you will never know Nathan, you will never hear from him, you will never get any news from him." And your son comes to you and says, "Mother, if you can't accept me for what I am, I'm cutting off communication with you, but more importantly, you will never know what happens to your grandson. All I want you to do, is, I know you are a pig-headed Catholic, you always have been, mother, you raised us that way, but you better accept me as I am, even though you believe that I am a sinner in what I am doing, and you don't approve, or you will never see your grandson again. I will make sure you never even know where he is."
Are you going to change your mind? That's the reality that we face in our lives. That's part of the human condition. It would be great! Lock me in a cell; I don't want anything to do with my wife, my children, my friends, my legal practice, the Church or anything. I will sit in a cell. You leave me alone. And I will be a great follower of Christ. Eh, no problem there, although I would probably get bored, maybe that would be the temptation. But that is not the reality we face.
In our world today, people don't come up and say, "John, your choice is to have your head chopped off or give up your Catholic faith." But he comes up instead and says, "Betty," I'm picking on Betty today, "if you decide finally to listen to Fr. Bradley, and Deacon Michael, and your husband and become Catholic, your son will never talk to you again." That's the reality that we face.
Can we be that kind of martyr? Can we give up everything? What is going to separate us? Paul talks about death or life, angels, principalities, nor present things, nor future things, all of these things. But what he talks about is the reality of our lives. Is the reality of our lives going to separate us from Christ? Or are we willing to be a martyr, a witness to the world by the way we live. By the way that we keep to our faith as Catholics in the face of things that are designed to separate us from God.
Are we, and do we have within us the ability to be martyrs? And that is a question of today, it has been a question for the last 2000 years, that people face. As long as they've had grandchildren, children, friends, family, spouses, everything, there is always that opportunity to live our lives as martyrs. Because martyr means witness.
Are you willing to live your life as a witness, as a martyr by shaping how you live and how you act with the world based on your belief in Jesus Christ and his Holy Catholic Church?
Asked differently, when faced with the pressures that will pull you away from your faith, are you willing to be a martyr, not necessarily to the extreme of Andrew Kim, and Paul Hasang, and have your heads chopped off, but are you willing to be a martyr? Do you have it within you, do we have it within us and that is a difficult issue that we really face every day of our lives.
September 20, 2018 - Feast of the Korean Martyrs