by Father John P. Cush
In the first reading we proclaim today from the Second Book of Maccabees, a mother encourages her seven sons to remain faithful to the law of the Lord. One of the brothers proclaims: “We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.”
All the brothers have to do is to violate their consciences, to eat pork in contradiction to the Old Covenant. What would you do? The American Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor commented: “When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.”
The world, by and large, doesn’t hold the same beliefs as you and I do. It doesn’t speak the same language as the Christian does.
In Rome, the Basilica of San Stefano on the Caelian Hill is filled with frescoes painted by the artists Pomarancio and Tempesta. The paintings are brutal and grotesque, and they are disturbing, but life can be brutal, too, especially life in our world today.
The images are meant to wake us up from our slumber to the reality of what the world is for Christians.
The frescoes serve a powerful purpose: to scream at us Christians, urging us to wake up. The martyrs depicted here are meant to inspire courage in our hearts, imploring those who are able to do so to perceive beyond the values set by this world, begging us to grow in an openness to the supernatural in our all too natural, fallen world.
Martyrs speak to us. These martyrs make the faith credible. They are the ultimate expression of the credibility of Divine Revelation. That was true in the Maccabees’ time and in the time of the martyrs depicted in that Roman basilica, and it is true in the present.
To give a moden example, when ISIS savagely murdered 20 Egyptian men and one Ghanaian man in January 2015, and then released the video a month later, stating that “Rome is next,” their plan backfired, because the 20 Coptic Christians and one Muslim who were killed became inspirations.
The Muslim man, Matthew Ayariga, was, by his actions, baptized in blood, convinced of the truth of the Christian faith because of the witness of his fellow workers. “Their God is my God. I will go with them,” he uttered, even when he could have been pardoned by his executioners.
This reading challenges us at the very core of our system of values. It challenges us and asks us a vital question: As Christians, as those incorporated into the Body of Christ, the church, are we in the world or of the world?
If we are to be Christian in the world today, we will suffer daily martyrdoms. The Lord Jesus, the King of Martyrs suffered, and so will we. Most likely, our martyrdoms will not be physical, but subtler, and we see that played out in the last acceptable prejudice, anti-Catholicism, in a generally secular society.
When someone stands for objective truth and natural law in the age of subjective reality, he or she is called a bigot. If we stand true in every aspect of our faith, we will suffer.
The fourth brother in the first reading states: “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.”
Have faith and follow Christ. If we are faithful to Him, He will remain faithful to us. The ultimate credibility of the faith is martyrdom. Have faith that the Lord will support us, even in the martyrdoms of daily life.
Readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Maccabees 7: 1-2,9-14
Psalm 17: 1, 5-6, 8, 15
2 Thessalonians 2: 16-3:5
Luke 20: 27-38
Father Cush, a priest of the Diocese of Brooklyn, serves as Academic Dean of the Pontifical North American College, Rome.