What Makes for Peace

If you only knew what makes for peace. (Luke 19:42)

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One of the genuinely heartbreaking ironies of our time: “martyrdom” and hope.

Every two years we read at Holy Mass the accounts of the heroes of the Maccabean revolt. The fidelity of the Maccabean martyrs inspires us. But Mattathias, and the Zealots who imitated him, did not fully reveal the face of the Father. Open impiety and irreligion moved Mattathias to kill. But open impiety and irreligion moved Christ to submit to suffering.

We do not know what makes for peace. But Christ teaches us. Holding fast to “the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising not its shame.” (Hebrews 12:2)

“The joy set before Him.” The fulfillment for which we were made, the kingdom of true happiness–it cannot be anything less than God. Christ teaches us that this kingdom, this happiness is real. We can, should, and must hope for it.

“He endured the cross.” Christ and the martyrs of Christ do not do violence. They endure violence. The holy martyrs whose memory the Church keeps alive through all the vagaries of history–they counted the joy to come more precious than this passing pilgrim life. So they submitted themselves to an unjust death.

We can and do say that the martyrs have held the world “in contempt.” But a true martyr’s contempt for the world aims only at the falsity and emptiness of a shallow life. In no way does this contempt move a true martyr to acts of violence. To the contrary, a martyr patiently and calmly awaits the coming of the Lord, living a genuinely spiritual life in this world. He becomes a martyr only when violence finds him.

Now, if we think that only jihadists make a mockery of the word martyr, then we deceive ourselves.

The Catholic Patriarch of Syria said yesterday: “It is inconceivable to think that [ISIS] can be defeated with air raids: this is a big lie.”

Practically every time we Western powers drop a bomb from the sky, over the land where our father Abraham once walked–every time we do that, we make real martyrs. Innocent bystanders, patiently waiting on God, meaning no harm to anyone, get killed. ISIS is a bunch of unbelievable bad guys, to be sure. And the people who drop bombs that incur “collateral damage” as a matter of course: Also bad guys.

Christ teaches what makes for peace. Staring calmly at death, not to bring it about, but to accept it. Because the joy set before us is greater.

Jewish Saint

Our beloved late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, beatified St. Teresa Benedicta, canonized her, and then declared her to be a Co-Patroness of Europe.

She held a special place in the Pope’s heart, obviously: The Nazis killed her in the Pope’s homeland, under the brutal regime which he himself endured as a young man. And, like the Pope’s oldest friend from childhood, with whom he liked to play ping-pong, among other things—like Jerzy Kluger, St. Teresa Benedicta was Jewish.

Before St. Teresa Benedicta became Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, she was called Edith Stein. She was a prominent philosopher who had rejected the Jewish faith she grew up with. Then she found Christ, or rather Christ found her. She became a Catholic and a Carmelite nun.

Played ping-pong with the Pope. (RIP. He died this past New Year’s Eve.)

When the bishops where Sister Teresa Benedicta lived protested against the Nazi abuses, the Nazis retaliated by arresting Teresa and sending her to Auschwitz. The saint willingly died with her brother- and sister-Jews, out of love for the crucified Christ, her Jewish Savior, Whom she loved above all.

When Pope John Paul canonized St. Teresa Benedicta, he declared that her Memorial every year should serve as an occasion for the Church to remember the vicious evil of the Holocaust.

Today we pray for all the victims of Nazi violence, that they might rest in peace. And we re-dedicate ourselves to standing up for the universal brotherhood of all mankind.

The Pope said, when he instituted this feast day: “We must all stand together for human dignity. There is only one human family.”

Martyred After the Edict of Milan

Before he became a holy man and a bishop, St. Blase had been a physician.

St. Blase lived through the Diocletian persecution, which lasted for 25 years and is also known as “the Great Perseucution.”

The emperor Diocletian believed that the practice of Christianity offended the gods and caused problems for the Empire. He revoked rights which Christians had previously enjoyed and insisted that everyone offer pagan sacrifices.

This provoked a crisis of conscience, of course. Many Christians embraced martyrdom rather than commit sacrilege. St. Blase was one of these.

Diocletian had established four prefectures to govern the vast empire. The father of Constantine the Great ruled the prefecture of France. As we know, the young Constantine declared Christianity legal after he took over the Italian prefecture in the year 312.

St. Blase, however, lived in the Eastern prefecture. Constantine did not assume control of that part of the Empire until the year 324. In the meantime, St. Blase was martyred, in 316.

As he was led to prison, a woman with a child dying of a throat disease begged St. Blase for his prayers. He prayed, and the child got better.

Choosing Friends

Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More in "A Man for All Seasons"

Tomorrow we venerate the memory of one of the great heroes of our age! Here is a homily…

Mother’s Milk from Above

St. Peter and Angel Visit St. Agatha in Prison by Giovanni Lanfranco

When St. Agatha was tortured during the Decian persecution, they mutilated her breasts.

St. Peter came to Agatha in the night, and he healed her, without touching her.

I am not making this up. God loves breasts.

The following comes from one of St. Augustine’s sermons:

A baby cannot digest solid food. The mother transforms solid food into warm milk for the baby.

Our minds cannot handle the full truth of God, at least not yet. We need to be given warm milk, so that we can mature to the point where we are ready to see God.

I fed you milk, not solid food. (I Corinthians 3:2)

Christ is like the breast of God.

The Son knows the Father fully. Christ transforms the solid food of divine knowledge into the babies’ milk that we need. His teaching is our breast milk.

If we consume Christ’s teaching, and live on it, we will grow to maturity. Then some day we will be able to live on the solid food of the beatific vision.

…Snow? Forget it. Your humble scribe is on his way to Verizon Center to rock some serious Red!!!

Be My Speed

Basilica of St. Denis

First thing this morning, I put my red on. But it wasn’t in honor of the faltering Caps.

I vested in a blood-red chasuble in honor of the martyr Saint Denis, who was beheaded 1751 years ago today. He was the first to preach the Gospel in Paris.

In Act V, Scene 2 of Shakespeare’s Henry V, the king invokes the aid of St. Denis.

Henry is trying to woo the Princess of France. But she is stone-faced, because she thinks Henry is an “enemy of France.”

Katharine. I cannot tell vat is dat.

Henry V
No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which I am
sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married
wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook
off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand
vous avez le possession de moi,—let me see, what
then? Saint Denis be my speed!—donc votre est
France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me,
Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much
more French: I shall never move thee in French,
unless it be to laugh at me.

When Kenneth Branagh delivered this line in his movie version, he skipped the invocation of St. Denis. Not a good idea!

…A brother-priest and I will undertake the Baltimore Half-Marathon tomorrow morning.

Please say a prayer for us that some heavenly power will be our speed! (Both of us are slow in more ways than one.)

Broadcasts and Interviews

Here is a heartbreaking testimony: Reuben Jackson on Football Withdrawal

(Here is another link, if the link you just clicked didn’t work. Scroll down to the bottom.)

A year ago today, we pilgrims celebrated Holy Mass in a chapel at the place where the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-42).