Martyrs and Fools Attend!

St. Agatha: 1 Cor 1.26-31 and Luke 9.23-26
Fr. Philip N. Powell, OP
St. Albert the Great Priory, Irving, TX

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How wise is it to be killed for a belief? Most would say that no belief is worth one’s life. How could something as fickle and fragile as a proposition about what I think about a given issue equal my life? And even if I found an issue so deeply important to me that my belief about it was worth defending with my life, who would ask me to do such a thing? I mean, who would challenge my belief so aggressively, so violently that I would find myself having to decide whether or not to die to defend it? We know that our soldiers frequently cite “freedom” and “democracy” as the abstract reasons for willingly fighting in foreign wars. These concepts carry enough juice still to motivate the young to pick arms and kill the enemy. But war-time is extraordinary.

Let me ask you: what would you die for? An idea? A cause? And let’s say there was a who you would die for…let’s say you answered: “Christ. I would die for Christ.” What does that mean? Christ has died for you! What does it mean for you to die for him? How will you carry out your baptismal vows if you’re dead? You could argue that by dying for Christ rather than renouncing him or denying him is a radical form of witness and that it satisfies your vows at baptism to preach the gospel. Possibly. But then I would have to go back to my original question: who’s going to put you in a situation that requires your life for your belief? Seriously now, who here is threatened with martyrdom? No one! Bloody martyrdom is as far from Irving, TX as the moon is for glowworms.

So why do we celebrate these martyrs? They are supposed to be examples, but examples of what? Stubbornness? Foolishness? Extremism? Wouldn’t they and we be better served by examples of productive compromise and accommodation? Wouldn’t everyone just get along better if we weren’t so insistent on phrasing our beliefs so aggressively, you know, talking about the truth of the faith so plainly, so convincingly? It might serve us best to tone down the fervor a little, cut the joy and praising with a little prudent grumpiness. All this red draws unwelcomed attention to the fact that some few objected to the faith of Agatha and killed her for that faith. Really now, who could be offended if we thanked Agatha for her life and witness and turned today into an Interfaith Celebration of Spiritual Tolerance and Diversity? Agatha would understand.

Well, all of that might be wise by human standards but it is foolishness in the sight of God. God chose us to become His fools. We are not the fools of the world, but Holy Fools who do foolish things like die for our beliefs. We are not ashamed of Christ. We do our best to follow Christ by denying ourselves—prayer, fasting, penance, service. We do this b/c we hope to gain an everlasting life. This means being weak in order to be strong, being lowly in order to be lifted up, to be counted nothing in the world so that we might be counted worthy before God.

Consider your calling, brothers and sisters, if you want to follow Christ—an extraordinarily foolish thing to want to do!—then you must do what he did: preach, teach the truth of the faith; serve the poor, the sick, the forgotten, the put-out; heal, heal, heal; pray fervently, sacrifice often, be with the church; suffer for the rest of us; and die friendless on a cross. And if we aren’t too busy tolerating our diversity down here, we might remember to remember you once in a while.

If you wish to follow Christ you will lose your lives. Take up his cross daily then and follow him. Foolishness awaits!