Would My Children Be Martyrs?
St. Agnes of Rome, pray for us.
Tough question. Recently I read a story with my daughter in her 1890 Catholic National Reader. The story described a praetexta and bulla-wearing boy of ancient Rome during early Christianity. His father had been martyred. Returning from school one day, he was jubilant but hesitant to tell his mother how his head had been injured.
The teacher had asked the children whether a real philosopher should ever be ready to die for truth. The other children had given flat answers, but the martyr’s boy, having been instructed firmly in the faith, had given his answer so passionately that the word “Christian” accidentally escaped his mouth. In those days Christians were “obliged to live as strangers in their own lands” for fear of their lives.
Moved by the conviction of the boy’s answer, all the students applauded except for one named Corvinus. Noticing the betraying slip, Cornivus became jealous and angry, vowing to harm his classmate and turn him over to the authorities. After school Cornivus challenged the martyr’s son to fight, but the Christian peacefully vowed that he never intended anyone harm. When he turned to leave, the crimson-faced and furious Corvinus smashed the martyr’s son in the head, knocking him to the ground while the other children cheered.
The martyr’s son told his mother how he stood up to his persecutor and, even as he admitted temptation to fight back, the hardest struggle of his life, flesh and blood so strong within him, he remembered her lessons and prayed that the good angels would conquer the demon at his side. He thought of Christ being beaten and humiliated, yet meek and forgiving, and rather than fighting back he stretched out his hand and replied to Cornivus, “May God forgive you, as I freely and fully do; and may He bless you abundantly.”
The conviction of this boy convicted me. In many ways my jean and sneaker-wearing children also live in times when Christians are strangers in their own lands. Am I preparing them to die for truth? Would they be martyrs? Have I taught them seek the counsel of angels and remember the meekness of Christ? Or have I become complacent in this modern confusion of political correctness? As we closed the book, my daughter and I opened a new discussion. As much as I pray no harm comes to her, I now pray even more that my children courageously confront whatever the world deals them as true children of God.
Category: Catholic Free Press, Personal
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- Would My Children Be Martyrs? - CATHOLIC FEAST - Sync your Soul | March 18, 2013
Stacy,
Does Altruism exist?
Mjeck,
Yes.
Heh… no it doesn’t
Stacy, your lovely essay brings me back to the books of Maccabees.
A few hundred years before Christ, the Greek dictator had conquered the Jewish lands. He was concerned because there was a clash of cultures between pagans and Jews, so he ordered a set of progressive reforms to make everybody equal. This of course required nothing of the pagans, but it meant that the Jews were required to cease observing their faith in public to avoid upsetting the pagans. Equality, as every mathematician knows, is not a degree of freedom but a constraint.
In 2 Maccabees chapter 7, please read the account of the slaughter of seven boys who refused to eat pork as required by law via the progressive reforms of the pagan government. The mother is forced to watch each boy be murdered cruelly by the pagan king himself. She stood by each boy as he was brutally tortured, whispering to each dying boy the truths of the Jewish faith, i.e., that God created the world and that the soul is immortal (the first reference to the soul’s immortality in scripture, if I’m not mistaken).
The Hebrew scriptures (2 Maccabees 7:20) characterized this lovely mother as follows:
“Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother who, seeing her seven sons perish in a single day, bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.”
Is this not a clear foreshadowing of our Blessed Mother? Who prays for us, now and at the hour of our death?!! Worthy of everlasting remembrance?
The idea of a hopeful mother who is forced to endure the suffering of her children was clearly in the Mind of God from the beginning. A place of honor is reserved for such mothers.
Jeff, I just read this very same scriptural reading over at Catholic Stand in an article concerning Massachusetts law requiring schools to accommodate “gender confused” children in letting them use what ever restroom they chose at school. For example, a boy who thinks himself a girl would be allowed, by law, to use the girl’s restroom and vice versa no matter the outcry from parents or the students.
Maccabees teaches us so much on so many levels about being faithful and true to our beliefs. On the one hand, Massachusetts and our society at large is attempting to make everyone equal in all ways even to the point of denying logic, reason and commonsense just as the king attempted to do in Maccabees. On the other hand, there will have to be a consequence on the part of faithful Catholics that refuse to acquiesce and deny their faith if they refuse to
Continued….Not sure what happened. My reply posted before I was done. Anyway, if we as Catholics live our lives faithfully, then yes, I believe Stacy is correct that our society is definitely leaning to the point where we will have to make a stand for our faith and perhaps be martyred for it, or deny Christ.
I rarely find anyone in this country, other than are military, who believe there are still things of importance as to die for them. Yes, many would risk their lives for their families, but how many professed Catholics would do the same for their faith? For Christ? Stacy, you are right in asking yourself whether or not you have prepared or are preparing your children for possible martyrdom.
Today we usually think of martyrdom with Islamic extremists and the promise of all those virgins if they give their life in a suicide bombing for Islam and Allah even if it means killing innocent men, women and children in the process. This type of martyrdom is completely contrary to the martyrdom suffered by early Christians and today, by Christians in third world nations who refuse to deny their faith.
I’ve asked myself this question many times and I believe today that my answer is yes, I would give up my life before denying Christ. I just hope if and when the time comes(which I believe will come) that I have the courage to face my death for my faith. Thanks for the post Stacy.