For Thursday, May 21, 2009What Makes a Saint?
Persistence on a mission. Love of God's people. Love of God. Dedication to the baptism that is ours. On fire with a genuine love of the mission because it serves the well-being of others. Paul was not afraid to take on the people in the synagogue who turned against him because of his preaching and teaching. That was almost 2000 years ago.
In the year two thousand, Pope John Paul II brought to the world, especially the once divided Mexico, a man few knew beyond the places of his missionary endeavor. He gave his all to strengthen the faithful not only in living their faith but in speaking out for it. Mexico was in the 1920s strongly anti-Catholic. Fr. Christopher Magellanes, along with 21 diocesan priests and 3 laity, were executed for speaking out against the prejudiced government. Fr. Christopher also founded a seminary and help some of the villagers in his part of Mexico get property to build a dam to guarantee water and power for the villages nearby.
What Paul and Fr. Christopher teach is simple: the cost of being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ may even be your life. Most of us today would not expect that such a martyrdom could happen today in North America. Many never expected that in 1927 when two dozen faithful followers of Jesus were executed by order of a "civilized" nation!!!
We are not called to such a sacrifice. Yet, we are called to speak out at times in support of our Church and what Jesus has taught us. We might ask ourselves if we know when we could speak out but just don't have the guts to do it. If that has happened in our lives, we might ask the Lord to forgive our failure to defend the faith and the graces to be stronger if other occasions occur when we should stand up for what we believe.
In the year two thousand, Pope John Paul II brought to the world, especially the once divided Mexico, a man few knew beyond the places of his missionary endeavor. He gave his all to strengthen the faithful not only in living their faith but in speaking out for it. Mexico was in the 1920s strongly anti-Catholic. Fr. Christopher Magellanes, along with 21 diocesan priests and 3 laity, were executed for speaking out against the prejudiced government. Fr. Christopher also founded a seminary and help some of the villagers in his part of Mexico get property to build a dam to guarantee water and power for the villages nearby.
What Paul and Fr. Christopher teach is simple: the cost of being a genuine follower of Jesus Christ may even be your life. Most of us today would not expect that such a martyrdom could happen today in North America. Many never expected that in 1927 when two dozen faithful followers of Jesus were executed by order of a "civilized" nation!!!
We are not called to such a sacrifice. Yet, we are called to speak out at times in support of our Church and what Jesus has taught us. We might ask ourselves if we know when we could speak out but just don't have the guts to do it. If that has happened in our lives, we might ask the Lord to forgive our failure to defend the faith and the graces to be stronger if other occasions occur when we should stand up for what we believe.
