The Martyr Maker: Being A Catholic under a Post-Christian Government

Jesus’ followers expected him to establish a kingdom on earth, like the kingdom of David. They expected to become the heads of a political force that would conquer the world and subject the world to Judaism.

At last the world would understand that they were right and everyone else was wrong. Wanting to be always right and proving everyone else wrong is the opposite of what God expects from his followers.

Our plans are not God’s plans. Our governments are not God’s government. There will always be that opposition between the Church and the world that was made manifest in Jesus’s temptations in the desert, where Jesus began a journey that ended in death.

We will always have to strive for true freedom of religion because God’s kingdom is not of this world.

Written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael.

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Today we have the celebration of St. Agatha.  Tomorrow we are going to have the celebration of St. Paul Miki and his companions in Japan.

And it raises the question, one of the questions I always like to contemplate and have talked about a number of times is, "Do you have it in you to be a martyr?"  What is it that it takes to be a martyr? What is the situation? 

And in both with St. Agatha and Paul Miki we have what I refer to as "The Martyr Maker."  The martyr maker is the contact level between secular society, generally the government, and religious belief.  The government has the power to kill.

So the question is, in these instances in our lives, do you have what it takes to be a martyr?  Or would Jesus look at your life, in instances, and say that you wished to save your life, and you lose it.  "Whoever loses his life for My sake, will save it."

What is it at this interface where you create martyrdom?  In St. Agatha's situation it was her dedication to Jesus and her life of virginity, that she wanted to live her life with God and a man who wanted to marry her and have her live a life with him as a spouse, a wife, and he had the power, he was given the power, in this particular period of time because it was a period of persecution, he had the power to punish her and kill her, torture her, which he did, which is why she is a saint.

So the question is, and we look at it in the world today, it is many times a matter of perspective, a matter of "what does it take?"  One of the great examples in the United States right now, and has been for the last forty years, has been the issue of abortion.

How far do you push the issue of abortion as a member of the Catholic Church?  How far do you push yourself to be a martyr because you have the interface between the government and religious society at this point in time.

In other countries right now, if I were to, right now, start preaching about homosexuality in a manner that was not favorable to homosexuality, there are civilized countries in the world where I could actually end up in jail.  Is that a point of martyrdom?

We have a question of immigration.  Where is the line that we draw with regard to our activity in the interface with the government that we deal with an issue on a the moral level such that we are giving our lives, making sacrifices of our lives, for the purpose of enacting and living the teachings of the Christ? 

That is a question that each and every one of us has.  You can come up with five more examples of what does it take to be a martyr in our situation and more definitively, is, do I have it within myself to be a martyr?  Because I can tell you from everything I have read, you want to be a martyr, Mayve, well you go live a life like St. Theresa on the streets of Calcutta, you go live a life of total giving of self and you finish after forty years and you're really not sure. 

You go out and get yourself killed for the faith, snap, it's easy!  So if you want to be a saint, that's the easy way to do it.

Come on in! 

The problem is it hurts.  Pain is not generally something that we want.  So what is it that we in our lives and in our faith process, in analyzing our lives and our interface with society, where do we draw the line?  Do we draw the line and say, well I'm only going to give up my life or put myself in jeopardy, to save the life of another?  Or if there's going to be a desecration of our faith, if there is going to be something that is so horrendous that we look at it and say, "No, that is enough!"

St. Agatha had the situation that she said, she was given the opportunity, well you can spend your life as a rich woman, having my children, being married to me, you know I love you, or you can be put in a brothel, you can be tortured, you can be murdered.  Your choice.

And we have to ask ourselves on a personal level, here in Farmers Branch, as comfortable as we are, and as protected as we are, where is the line for us personally?  Where is the line where we would simply say, "That is the line.  I will not allow that line to be passed without me becoming a martyr?"

Where is it?  Like I said, is it immigration?  Is it abortion?  Is it sin?  What is it?

And that is a very difficult situation because when we contemplate that question we, by necessity, contemplate whether we are in fact living a life the way that God wants us to live.

Jesus tends to be very unequivocal about some of these things.  Loving thy neighbor, He didn't put a limit on it.  And so by contemplating do I have what is necessary to be a martyr we engage in the exercise, the valuable exercise, of truly understanding our faith and what does our faith mean to us and how central to our faith is the teaching of Christ?

And the wonderful thing about that, and I talk about this constantly, is, our faith is such that if we think about it, it grows.  If we work to understand it, it becomes something special.  It can be like the mustard seed growing into the great shrub.

One of the questions that we have in our lives, sitting here comfortably, is, do I have what it takes to be a martyr?  And that question will bring you to Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the question will bring you to the very core of where you are.  Do you believe in Our Lord Jesus Christ, and do you follow His commandments, and are you willing to lose your life to gain eternal life?

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