There
is a place near my home town in Ireland (Killoran, Balinasloe) called
‘The Bishop’s Chair’. My father brought me there a few years
ago (14th Jan 2000). It is a hard place to find, as it really is out
in the middle of nowhere. This ‘chair,’ which is in the middle of
a field, was where at least two bishops, between 1679-1701, ordained
many priests in secret. At the time it was illegal to be a Catholic
priest and if they were caught they could have been executed, so they
had to ordain them in secret. It is very moving to visit it, even
though there is not much to see today, but just to think of the
sacrifice that so many men and women were prepared to make at that
time, to pass on their faith. Priests were prepared to risk their
lives so that the people could have the mass, because they had the
faith to believe that the mass was everything. The people were
prepared to risk their lives by going to mass. The mass had to be
celebrated in secret, often on what were known as ‘mass rocks’
out in the countryside. Many priests did die for the mass, because
they were caught. But now all that sort of thing is in the past,
right?
Just
a few years ago in 2007, a priest friend of mine, who was my nextdoor
neighbour in the Irish College in Rome for a year and a half, was
shot dead after celebrating mass in Mosul, northern Iraq. He was just
35 years old. He had been threatened several times, but he remained
on in his parish, in order to be there to celebrate mass for the
people, even though he knew the danger. On the Sunday after Pentecost
in 2007, after celebrating mass in the parish church, Ragheed and
three deacons were ambushed by several gunmen. They forced them out
of the cars they were driving and shot all four of them. Persecution
for our faith is never far away.
At
the moment we don’t live with that kind of persecution in this
country, thank God, though we are living with a different kind of
persecution, where our faith and our Church is constantly being put
down, mocked and lied about. Maybe it seems strange that the
Christian faith, which preaches peace and justice, love of neighbour
and respect for all people, should face such ongoing persecution and
it still does in many parts of the world. Then we have this line in
today’s Gospel:
I have come to bring fire to the earth...
Do you suppose I am here to bring peace on earth?
No I tell you, but rather division.
This
line seems to be a contradiction to what we usually associate with
what Jesus spoke about. ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth.’
What about peace and tolerance and all that? Preaching the message of
Jesus Christ, which is about peace and justice, etc, brings
persecution with it, because not everyone wants to hear it. The
teaching of Christ is a very challenging teaching at the best of
times. It confronts us when we are not living according to the Lord’s
teaching and that often makes people angry. We don’t like to be
shown up. No one likes to be confronted, but it is because the Lord
loves us that He confronts us, to help us become better people. In
the last 7 years, 23 priests in Mexico have been murdered, no doubt
because they are speaking against the drug cartels, which are pure
evil. They are challenging them with God’s word. They have the
choice to turn back to God, or not. Instead many of them choose to
kill the people God sends.
It
says in John’s Gospel: ‘People have preferred darkness to the
light, because their deeds were evil’ (Jn 3:19). There is a
tendency in us which draws us to what is wrong. We usually know
what the right thing to do is, but sometimes we find it hard to
choose it. And if we have done what is wrong, or if we are living in
a way that is against what God teaches us, then we are not going to
be happy with the teachings of Christ, because it will confront us,
just as a parent will confront their child if they have done wrong.
That is why the message of Jesus always brings persecution with it,
because it challenges us to follow one path or the other. There is no
middle ground. But perhaps what is most important to remember is that
the Lord’s teaching, difficult though it often is, is there to help
us, because the Lord knows what will make us blossom.
I
always find it consoling when I read about the calling of any of the
prophets in the Bible. Nearly all of them resisted. And even if they
didn’t resist initially, they usually asked God after a while if
they could quit, as it was so difficult. They suffered for speaking
the truth about God. The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘You have seduced
me Lord and I have let myself be seduced... For me the Lord’s word
has meant insult and derision all day long’ (Jer 20:7, 8b). The
prophet Elijah, after working one of the most extraordinary miracles
then finds himself on the run because the Queen is trying to kill him
and he says: ‘Lord, I have had enough. Take my life, I am no better
than my ancestors’ (1 Kg 19:4-5). ‘I wish I was dead. I can’t
go on.’ Who would blame them?
If
you want to be faithful to Jesus, it will cost you. Not everyone in
your family is going to like it. Many of the people you work with
won’t like it. But that is no reason for us to be afraid, because
the Lord assures us that He is with us and that He will help us. I
know of many parents whose adult children challenge them about their
faith, but we have nothing to apologize for and we have a right to
ask others, even our children, to respect what we believe, just as we
try to respect what others believe. For our part, we just try to be
faithful and live what we believe in, as best we can. We follow this
path because we believe it is the most worthwhile path, the path that
leads to God.
So
each day we rededicate ourselves to God and we try to be faithful as
best we can. It is not an easy path, but it is the most worthwhile
path. We will meet resistance, but that is how the Lord said it
would be.
‘I
have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing
already.’
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