A woman who fled the violence in the Iraqi town of Sinjar sits with a child inside a tent at a camp in Syria's northern town of Qamishli Aug. 17. Returning from a visit to the Kurdish region of Iraq, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan called the Islamic State invasion "pure and simple religious cleansing and attempted genocide." (CNS photo/Rodi Said, Reuters) See YOUNAN-CLEANSING Aug. 27, 2014.Whenever I ask my middle school students if they have any special intentions for which they would like to pray at the beginning of class, one of them will inevitably mention “the people in the desert and being killed in those places” in the Middle East. Despite their fuzziness on the details, they appreciate fully that there are people who are suffering and in need of prayers. And when I explain that these Christians in Iraq and Syria are willing to die rather than give up their faith in Jesus, my students’ faces shine with awe. What is it about sufferings of people they do not know, who live in countries on the other side of the world whose names they cannot remember, that inspires these 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds?
Tertullian, one of the early Church Fathers, said that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians.” History demonstrates that waves of persecutions have always been followed by waves of conversion to Christianity. The witness of the martyrs, who are willing to endure horrible tortures and give their lives rather than deny their faith in Jesus Christ, has provided the shining example that spurs others to embrace the truth of the Christian faith. A life lived so completely for Christ that one would rather die than live without Him radiates an authenticity so attractive that others cannot help but be inspired to seek a life lived in and for Christ as well.
The month of October finds us celebrating several martyrs in the liturgy. Among them, St. Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr of the early Church, wrote letters to his Christian flock as he travelled to his martyrdom, telling them, in a clear reference to the Eucharist, “I am God’s wheat and I shall be ground by the teeth of beast, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.”
St. John de Brebeuf, St. Isaac Jogues, and their companions braved harsh conditions, savage tortures, and even death to bring Christ to the Native Americans in modern-day Canada and the northern United States. Saints Simon and Jude — and indeed all the apostles except for St. John — gave their lives in love for the One who called them to “preach the Gospel to all nations.” Thanks to their preaching and the witness of their lives we, 2,000 years later, are able to know Him as well.
Let us learn from the martyrs of the past and from the newest martyrs of our era the value of a life lived totally for Christ. May they remind us that nothing, not even life itself, rivals the preciousness of our faith in Jesus Christ. May their example give us the courage to live our daily lives here on earth totally for Him, so that we may live with Him and with them forever in heaven. May the blood of these martyrs be the “seed” of our own radical living of the Christian life.
Sr. Mary Martha Becnel is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sister of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.
