“The believer who has seriously pondered his Christian vocation, including what Revelation has to say about the possibility of martyrdom, cannot exclude it from his own life's horizon. The two thousand years since the birth of Christ are marked by the ever-present witness of the martyrs.”

                             ~St. (Pope) John Paul II

For Reflection:

Should circumstances require it, am I willing to suffer martyrdom for the sake of the Church? Why or why not?

 A Note on the Texts

My goal, however, was instead to provide short and simple readings about Mary, profound in their insights yet easily accessible to contemporary readers. So I've adapted the texts rather freely to achieve that goal. I've modernized the language, and where earlier standards of style called for long, complex sentences and interminable paragraphs, I've broken them up into shorter, more manageable pieces.