Blood martyrdom has not yet come to the Western world, but we have all experienced the persecution Pope Francis described during morning Mass on Tuesday – the “polite” kind that is “disguised as culture, modernity and progress” but that actually robs us of our freedom.
L’Osservatore Romano is reporting on the pope’s homily which touched on the first type of persecution, which results in physical martyrdom. He spoke about the martyrdom of St. Stephen and the “little martyrs” who were slaughtered by Herod who was desperate to kill the baby Jesus.
“From that time until today there have been martyrs in the Church, there have been and there are . . . men and women persecuted only for confessing and for saying that Jesus Christ is Lord: this is prohibited! Indeed, this confession at certain times, in certain places, provokes persecution.”
There is, however, “another kind of persecution that is not often spoken about”, Francis noted. The first form of persecution “is due to confessing the name of Christ” and it is thus “a clear, explicit type of persecution”. The other kind of persecution is “disguised as culture, disguised as modernity, disguised as progress: it is a kind of — I would say somewhat ironically — polite persecution. You can recognize when someone is persecuted not for confessing Christ’s name, but for wanting to demonstrate the values of the Son of God. Thus, it is a kind of persecution against God the Creator in the person of his children.”
He continued:
This is the persecution of the world, he said. And this polite persecution has a leader who was named by Jesus Himself – it is Satan, the prince of this world.
“We see him when the powerful want to impose attitudes, laws against the dignity of the children of God, persecute them and oppose God the Creator: it is the great apostasy. Thus, Christian life continues with these two kinds of persecution.”
But we need to keep our perspective and remember that persecution “is the daily bread of the Church,” Francis said. “After all, Jesus said so”.
“ . . . [A] Christian is a martyr, that is, a witness, one who must bear witness to Christ who has saved us,” the Pope said. This means that on the journey of life, we must bear witness to God the Father who created us.
On this path a Christian “must suffer many times: this brings so much suffering,” he said, “But such is our life: Jesus is always beside us, with the consolation of the Holy Spirit. And this is our strength.”
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