When it comes to saints, Magnificat doesn't just talk about the “official” saints of the liturgical calendar. Certainly, if a day is an official feast day, the magazine includes a piece about that saint. But on “quieter” days, it includes one, and often two, essays about saints most of us have never heard of.
In the six months since I began subscribing to Magnificat, I have read about dozens of saints in its pages. The number and variety of men and women who have devoted — and often given up — their lives to follow Christ is nothing short of amazing. The saints it describes were of all ages and states of life. They achieved sanctity as mothers and fathers, priests, brothers, religious, widows and widowers, husbands and wives, monks, virgins, preachers, missionaries, bishops, laymen, kings and queens, penitents, mystics, writers, confessors, converts and martyrs.
When we think of saints, we don't necessarily think of martyrs, but when we think of martyrs, we usually always think of saints. This realization came to me a few weeks ago during Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in San Diego, where I sat beneath a stained glass window depicting St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, holding the instrument of his martyrdom, a rock. The story of his death by stoning is told in the seventh chapter of Acts.
Studying that window, I thought of other windows, statues and pictures of martyrs, and the instruments of their martyrdom. St. Catherine of
Alexandria, for example, is often depicted holding a torture wheel. St.
Sebastian is shown shot through with arrows. In the Marytown chapel in Libertyville, Illinois, there is a mosaic showing St. Maximilian Kolbe in prison garb, about to be injected with a lethal hypodermic needle by his Auschwitz jailer.
Some martyrs are illustrated with symbols of the reason they died, rather than the method of their execution. For example, St. Maria Goretti is portrayed with lillies, symbolizing her death resulting from her refusal to commit sexual sin.
The statues and stained glass windows are beautiful, and we can learn much about the saints' lives and deaths from studying them, but how often do we examine them in relation to our own lives? Do we look at a window and think, “That's pretty,” and then just go about our business? Have we ever considered the possibility that we could someday be the subject of such artwork?
“No way,” you say? Well, yes way. I submit that martyrdom is not just a possibility, but a probability — not only white martyrdom, but red martyrdom. We had better start getting used to the idea, because the signs are all around us: the spirit of the age in prevailing thoughts and attitudes, in moral relativism, and in secular humanism.
Closely related to martyrdom is prophetic witness. Prophets do not predict the future as much as they reveal the truth of their time — the truth that always has been, and continues to be, unpalatable and uncomfortable to the world. Our society is blind. If we proclaim the truth we will be hated and very possibly martyred for our prophetic witness. People steeped in sin hate the truth, and those who confront them with it. They hate the message, so they respond by shooting the messenger.
Back to those statues or windows: If you or I were in them, what modern-day symbols of martyrdom might accompany our portraits?
In my case, it might be a poster of an aborted baby, symbolizing the physical attacks I've suffered for displaying the truth of abortion to a world that denies the deliberate destruction of the unborn. For others, it might be a device used to communicate truth, such as a computer, telephone, radio microphone, or newspaper. Other modern-day symbols of martyrdom might include handcuffs or a pink slip, symbolizing martyrdom of a jail sentence or job loss for following Jesus Christ.
In the back of the June issue of Magnificat there is a painting by Jean-Leon Gerome titled, “The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer.” The accompanying text by Michael Morris, O.P., explains the symbolism of the painting. In it, a band of Christians prays on the floor of a Roman amphitheater as they are about to be devoured by hungry lions and tigers before a crowd of 150,000 spectators. As the animals emerge from their subterranean holding pen, the arena is lit with the crucified and tarred bodies of other Christians who are set afire, one by one, as human torches.
Morris writes, “'Semen est sanguis christianorum,' declared the Church Father, Tertullian, who saw in the blood of the martyrs the very seed of that transformation. The more Rome used violence and bloodshed to stamp out the new religion, the more efficaciously it spread, transforming the Eternal City from the epicenter of the pagan world into the capital of Christianity.”
Though this painting depicts an event that occurred many hundreds of years ago, the probability of martyrdom is no more remote today than it was then. Today's Roman amphitheaters are our workplaces and neighborhoods. The crowds who gather to watch Christians die are the unbelievers we encounter in everyday life. As we celebrate the Feast of All Saints this week, let us remember those who gave their lives for the Gospel — and prepare to give our own.
