In the past year countless Christians have been martyred in the Middle East. Throughout all of these atrocities, we have even heard of stories of Christians who were well prepared for martyrdom and willing to give up their lives. However, for us who live in extreme comfort in America the thought of martyrdom is downright horrifying.
[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883)[/featured-image]
I will be honest and say that I am not entirely thrilled with the idea either.
Christian men and women have died for the faith ever since St. Stephen was stoned to death and became the first martyr. However, most of the world associates martyrdom with being eaten alive in the Coliseum during the Roman Empire. That was only the beginning.
St. John Paul II, in preparing for the Great Jubilee year of 2000, created a Commission for the New Martyrs of the Great Jubilee. This particular commission researched and cataloged all those who died for the faith in the 20th century. They discovered that the “20th century has produced double the number of Christian martyrs [than] all the previous 19 centuries put together.”
Will this century rival the 20th century? That is yet to be determined.
Suffice to say, martyrdom is a basic fact of the Christian faith and one that we all don’t like to face. Yet, one could say it is essential to the spreading of the Gospel. As Tertullian famously wrote, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” St. John Paul II expanded on this concept in his Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, where he wrote,
The Church of the first millennium was born of the blood of the martyrs: “Sanguis martyrum – semen christianorum”.21 The historical events linked to the figure of Constantine the Great could never have ensured the development of the Church as it occurred during the first millennium if it had not been for the seeds sown by the martyrs and the heritage of sanctity which marked the first Christian generations. At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs. The persecutions of believers -priests, Religious and laity-has caused a great sowing of martyrdom in different parts of the world. The witness to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants, as Pope Paul VI pointed out in his Homily for the Canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs.22
This witness must not be forgotten. The Church of the first centuries, although facing considerable organizational difficulties, took care to write down in special martyrologies the witness of the martyrs. These martyrologies have been constantly updated through the centuries, and the register of the saints and the blessed bears the names not only of those who have shed their blood for Christ but also of teachers of the faith, missionaries, confessors, bishops, priests, virgins, married couples, widows and children.
In our own century the martyrs have returned, many of them nameless, “unknown soldiers” as it were of God’s great cause. As far as possible, their witness should not be lost to the Church. As was recommended in the Consistory, the local Churches should do everything possible to ensure that the memory of those who have suffered martyrdom should be safeguarded, gathering the necessary documentation. This gesture cannot fail to have an ecumenical character and expression. Perhaps the most convincing form of ecumenism is the ecumenism of the saints and of the martyrs. The communio sanctorum speaks louder than the things which divide us. The martyrologium of the first centuries was the basis of the veneration of the Saints. By proclaiming and venerating the holiness of her sons and daughters, the Church gave supreme honour to God himself; in the martyrs she venerated Christ, who was at the origin of their martyrdom and of their holiness. In later times there developed the practice of canonization, a practice which still continues in the Catholic Church and in the Orthodox Churches. In recent years the number of canonizations and beatifications has increased. These show the vitality of the local Churches, which are much more numerous today than in the first centuries and in the first millennium. The greatest homage which all the Churches can give to Christ on the threshold of the third millennium will be to manifest the Redeemer’s all-powerful presence through the fruits of faith, hope and charity present in men and women of many different tongues and races who have followed Christ in the various forms of the Christian vocation. (37, emphasis added)
Why Should I Prepare for Martyrdom?
Martyrdom is a gift from God. Only those whom God has given extraordinary grace will become martyrs. We are not all called to “red” martyrdom. However, we should be prepared to be a red martyr every day of our life. How? It is quite simple: love of God. Martyrs are born from a deep and abiding love of God.
For example, as a father of my family, I would be willing to do anything for my family; even risk my life if it meant that I could save them. This ability to sacrifice my life is born out of my deep love for them.
So too, we only receive the grace and strength to suffer martyrdom if we have an unquenchable love of God. We won’t die for a list of rules and regulations. We won’t shed our blood for an ancient book. We will die for a Person.
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux expressed her own desire to be a martyr in her autobiography. She related how she felt the “vocation of the WARRIOR, THE PRIEST, THE APOSTLE, THE DOCTOR, THE MARTYR.” She was never granted that last particular gift of God, but she discovered that she could fulfill that vocation by being love. She understood that “LOVE COMPRISED ALL VOCATIONS, THAT LOVE WAS EVERYTHING. THAT IT EMBRACED ALL TIMES AND PLACES…IN A WORD, THAT IT WAS ETERNAL!”
In the end, we don’t know if we will be called to die for the Faith and that is OK. All that matters is living daily the vocation God has given us and loving Him above all else.
Love prepares us for martyrdom. Let us allow God to fan into our hearts the flame of Divine Love so that we may be prepared to meet Him, whenever He calls.