It's early Saturday morning and the Feast Day is as cold as the sky. I'm on the Cape and the ocean is a white/blue. So is the sky. In fact, there's no horizon line. From the shore to the white sun in the sky, is all white/blue. I shivered as I looked at it, praying morning prayers.
Today is the feast of Sts. Isaac Jogues, John De Brebeuf, and companions, and the thought of their martyrdom, has also made me shiver. Even Fr. Francis Moy, s.j. has the same reaction. As a fellow Jesuit as these martyrs, who were fearfully tortured, (and went back for more), Fr. Moy says his heart drops. I wonder at their courage and faith. I find myself praying "Oh Lord, don't ever let that happen to me." Then, I sheepishly gulp, "according to Your Will, O Lord."
Good grief! I'd need an avalanche of grace to be a martyr. I don't mind the dying; that will happen, anyway. It's the torture that worries me. God help and forgive me.
Today's meditation in Magnificat is by Joseph Chihwatenhwa, a Huron who was converted by the martyrs. The date is 1640:
...I am the one who, in derision, am everywhere called "The Believer." They think they are speaking evilly of me; but that name is my greatest glory. I am that man. I have kinsmen in your village, and you know them. I make public profession of following the good instructions which these Blackrobes, my teachers, have given me. We have no sense, as many as there are of us. Our thoughts do not extend farther than this life. Those of us who believe place our hopes upon an eternity of good things which are surely prepared for us hereafter.
Couldn't Joseph Chihwatenhwa's words be spoken to people today? You don't think...
Nah, ....
but?
do you think we Believers could be martyred, today?
Let us pray for all Christians in the Middle East, and everywhere the church is persecuted, especially for the two Jesuits who have been missing for two months in Syria.
