The Martyrdom of Ordinary Life

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - November 2, 2007

The largest beatification in the history of the Church was held on Sunday in the Vatican, when 498 Spanish martyrs were raised to the altars.

They were all killed in hatred of the Catholic faith during the Spanish Civil War, which terrorized Spain from 1936-1939. In the span of four years of anti-Catholic frenzy, leftist republicans hunted down and executed nearly 7,000 priests, 13 bishops, 283 nuns and thousands of lay people. Hundreds of Churches and monasteries were attacked, desecrated and burned to the ground.

After the October 28 ceremony, Pope Benedict, in his Angelus address, stressed the meaning of the event for Catholics throughout the world.

"Adding such a great number of martyrs to the list of beatified persons shows that the supreme witness of giving blood is not an exception reserved only to some individuals, but a realistic possibility for all Christian people. It includes men and women of different ages, vocations and social conditions, who pay with their lives in fidelity to Christ and his Church."

No matter our state of life, all Christians need to face the possibility that to follow Christ faithfully we may need to trace his bloody footsteps along the way of the Cross. To suffer is not exceptional; not to suffer is.

"Remember the word that I said to you," Jesus said during the Last Supper, "'the servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you" (Jn 15:20). He added that, just like they were about to do to him, "they will arrest you and persecute you, hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to give witness" (Lk 21:13). Truth incarnate told us not to be afraid of those who could kill the body but not kill the soul (Mt 10:28), but rather to rejoice when persecuted, "for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you" (Mt 5:12).

Benedict says that the Christian orientation toward martyrdom begins in baptism, when we enter into Christ's death so as to enter into his life (cf. Rom 6:3-4). But whether or not we are called to shed our blood for the faith, we are all called to two things: to be willing at least to pay the supreme sacrifice out of love for Christ who paid it for us; and to be willing to suffer and sacrifice ourselves daily out of faithful love for Christ and others.

The Spanish martyrs' example, the pope states, illustrates both aspects of this two-fold baptismal reality. First, it "gives witness to the fact that baptism commits Christians to participate boldly in the spread of the Kingdom of God, cooperating if necessary with the sacrifice of one's own life." But it also highlights another type of martyrdom. "Certainly not everyone is called to a bloody martyrdom. There is also an unbloody 'martyrdom,' which is no less significant. … It is the silent and heroic testimony of many Christians who live the Gospel without compromise, fulfilling their duty and dedicating themselves generously in service to the poor."

This unbloody martyrdom, to "live the Gospel without compromise," is one of the most urgent tasks for Christians today in Massachusetts and elsewhere. We live in a culture in which many expect everything, except their own desires, to be up for compromise. Workers in non-essential industries are asked to compromise their fidelity to God and work rather than worship God on Sundays. Those who aspire to public office are often asked to check parts of their faith at the door of the party offices and adopt immoral planks of the party platform. Public school teachers are frequently expected to keep the deepest part of their personality hidden in school, because anti-religious politically-correct administrators think that the mere witness of faith may harm students. Emergency room personnel and most pharmacists in Massachusetts are mandated to suppress their compassion for the most innocent and vulnerable human beings and to give out abortifacient pills to women who may be pregnant. Justices of the peace are forced to sell out both their faith and reason and celebrate pseudo-marriages of people of the same sex if they wish to continue to celebrate genuine marriages of a man and a woman. There are many more examples to choose from, but the point is clear. We are living in an age in which many in our culture think the only "good Catholic" is one who "reasonably" allows popular opinion to trump the law of God, to compromise their faith lest the get in the way of the immoral aims of those in power.

That's why Pope Benedict says that the "martyrdom of ordinary life" is a "particularly important witness in the secularized societies of our time." Christians need to show that when given a choice between God and work, between God and an unjust law, between God and unfair demands from family members, even between God's will and their own, Christians will serve God. This witness of uncompromising fidelity, even in the face of persecution, threats, or death, is what moves others to conversion. This is the "peaceful battle of love," the Pope says, "that all Christians have to fight tirelessly."

Tens of thousands of Spanish Catholics fought that good fight of faithful love until the end. May they intercede for us here in this Diocese, so that we might courageously live out that "martyrdom of ordinary life" to which Christ and earthly his vicar call us.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.