I DON'T DEFEND MY FAITH, I WITNESS TO IT [2]

21 Coptic Orthodox Christian Martyrs

"The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians."  This saying from an old tradition dating back to the extremely early days of Christianity can serve us well these days.  Over the last few years we have seen more Christians put to death for their faith than were killed during the period of the Roman persecutions.  These days we have martyrs in many places all over the globe.   
While most often we think of martyrdom as dying for our faith, and rightly so, there is a part of martyrdom that doesn't always include violet death.  There is a part of martyrdom that kills the spirit. There are many places in the world where life as a Christian is so difficult that death would be a welcome alternative.  But it doesn't always come.  Life continues in an endless stream of threats of death and of constant and cruel marginalization.  Living life under those conditions and not surrendering is a true defense of faith.  Under those conditions being able to recite a list of proof texts is not going to get you anywhere.  The apologetics of real life suffering and perseverance is the modern equivalent of the Maccabees in the Bible and the early Christian converts that we know about in Palestine and Rome.  
We have to ask ourselves the question about how we would behave under such circumstances.  We must ask ourselves just what it is that we understand when we say that we want to defend our faith. The defense of the faith is much more challenging than being able to trade proof texts with someone of a different opinion.  The defense of faith is complete and total dedication to the God in whom we believe.  It is the result of selling all that we have and giving the proceeds to the poor.  When we have defended the faith bravely, we just may not be around to celebrate the victory here on earth.  I suggest that you read the book of Revelation to see the role that martyrs play.
To make a final point, I will dare to say that in this country (USA), and in others around the world, the defense of the faith may come to require us to break away from the attachments that we have to government benefits.  There may come a day when we will have to stop taking government grant money to our schools and hospitals if we are to continue as Christian caregivers of education and health care and other activities.  Are we ready to do that?  Will we ever be ready? What if these institutions will be taken away from us?  Are we ready?  There are countries in the world today,and we know them well, where the Church has lost a lot of privileges and property.  That too is a kind of martyrdom and we have to be ready to confront it.  Are we?  

Finally, I say that the defense of the faith is a spiritual strength that comes from the Holy Spirit.  This strength is promised to us by God through His promise to Isaiah in chapter 41 and by Jesus Himself when He told His apostles "... 10"And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. 11"When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; 12for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." (Luke, chapter 12)  On that day, and it comes to all of us in one way or another, at one time or another, from someone or other, the defense of the faith resides in the strength of the Holy Spirit not in the verses that we have memorized from our apologetics experiences.  

The best way to prepare to defend the faith is to maintain an very, very close relationship with our loving God and His sweet and tough mother.  

True enough, we may not ever have to die for the faith, but that's not a sure thing.  Stay ready.

When you hear that I have died, don't cry, just thank God and add a little prayer that I am indeed with Him.  In any case, I insist on having a dry-eyed funeral.

DO YOU PRAY THE BIBLE? OR DO YOU JUST READ IT SO YOU CAN ARGUE BETTER?

Click here for a perfect example of what this says

The other day, about two weeks ago I was sent a link to a Catholic blogger's site within an email which said: "This, you're going to really like!"  Since the source of the email is someone whom I really love and trust, I did proceed to go to the website and the first page that appeared provided me with some joy and satisfaction.  In fact if you click here you can go there to judge for yourself.  As I usually do when I am on a Catholic site, after I have read the first page I then go back to follow the links that the author proposes.  That was easy to do since the link sent the reader back to an exchange of comments from an earlier blog post published by the same author.  It turned out to be nearly 90 pages worth of diatribe and rebuttal after re-rebuttal between the "Sola Scriptura" crowd and the 'Roman Catholic" crowd.  90 pages full of smoke and not a single syllable of Holy Fire.
Two sides of invincibly ignorant people trying to convince the other about something that is so deeply entrenched in people that it is incorrigible by any other other force than by the Light, the Way and the Truth -- yeah, Him!
Oh, Him.  Well, in 90 pages, not a single word about Him nor from Him.  No siree, not in apologetics.  It's all about the text and MY way of reading the text against yours.  And I know that the text is God's word infused and Spirit blown into the soul of the writer, so my reading can't possibly be wrong.  Real sweet...Both sides coming from opposite poles with the same weapon.  One using it as a hammer and the other as a saber.  Neither one of them acknowledging the Christ Himself is the Word.  Brothers and sisters, this is we humans' greatest insult to the Word of God conducted in His Name, if you can believe that?  The text put before the living Word's life example.

Apologetics the way it is understood in our world is nothing but the centuries-old head-butting between the Pharisees and the Sadducees continued.  The only time the Gospels are mentioned is when a) it is pointed out by whomever thinks of it first, that Jesus defeated Satan by the Scripture quotes He wielded in the desert and b) snippets of rebuke to the people of the day about, say, when Jesus says that Satan can deceive even the believers.
In nearly 90 pages, not one single word of Jesus' command that we "pick up our cross daily and follow Me." [Mt. 16;24]
Not once did we hear the command, "...you lack one thing, go, sell all that you have, give the proceeds to the poor and then, come and follow me." [Mk. 10;21 + Mt and Lk]
Not once did we hear the admonition to "...visit the sick, clothe the naked..." - not once! [Mt. 25]
I could go on for at least another 1,000 words, but you get the point.  At no time was God, neither the Father nor His Son, His living Word,  the real subject of this discussion.  It was all about who is right and who is in error.  It is my opinion that in this kind of exchange, neither side is doing the Will of God.  Discussions of this nature do not make God float to the top and come into the line of vision of those discussing and certainly not of those reading/hearing.

You all know, of course, that I am Catholic.  I was born long before many of you saw the light of day.  I admit to being an exception to the Catholic "rule" about the Bible.  We always had a Bible in our house.  Not in a place of honor.  We were not THAT much of an exception.  But we had it because my father was a faithful prayor [maybe that's not word, but you know what I mean] of the Psalms.  We read the stories of creation, Noah, Abraham, Samson, of course, Tobit and the great fish, The Birth of Jesus and His passion, etc.  The praying of the Psalms is a daily exercise for me.  The praying of the song of Moses is a now and again treat.  The Song of Zachariah,  of Mary, of Hannah are all moments of deep spiritual meaning for me.  I regularly pray the vocation stories of Moses, Abraham, and the great prophets.  Finally, every single day I read one of the commands of God the Father to Adam, Cain, Noah, Abraham and others to collaborate with Him in the work of caring for His creation.  Every day I read the parallel orders of His Son to follow him, to feed the hungry, to help the widows, to pray daily, to eat His Body and Drink His Blood and finally to serve all nations by spreading His Good News.  Finally, at least once a month I reread the powerful prayer of Deacon Stephen [Acts, chapter 7] as he prepared to be stoned to death by the Chosen People themselves.  His prayer was the Biblical story of the escape from Egypt and the Covenant between God and the very people who were preparing to kill him.  

Brothers and Sisters, no matter what else you may hear about the Bible, remember this, it is the sacramental presence of the Word of God, telling us who He is and how to maintain a righteous spiritual and physical relationship to Him.  It is not exclusively to teach us who He is through the reading of it and the arguing about what it says to us.  We come to really know who He is through praying it, not just reading it in order to sharpen our saber.  Finally, we come to know Him even more deeply by duplicating His life style in our own, by energetically collaborating with the Triune God in an effort to make this world a holier place in which to live.

Now that you know all of this about me, since you won't be crying at my funeral, you'll be saving yourself the trouble of having to wash another handkerchief.