ON February 15, 2015, ISIS shocked the whole Christian world by releasing a video of the execution of 21 Coptic Christian migrant workers. Men in black uniform stood behind the 21 men in orange jumpsuits kneeling on a beach in Libya. Without mercy, they gruesomely beheaded each one of them. A subtitle of the video read: “The people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church.”
Later on the media found out that one of the men, named Matthew Ayairga, was not a Egyptian Coptic Christian. Accordingly, when the terrorists questioned him whether he would reject Jesus as God, he boldly declared, “Their God is my God.” At that point he too gave up his life for the Christian faith.
What a heroic way to testify to one’s faith! What boldness of heart! Today we rarely see Christians giving up their lives for the sake of their beliefs.
Upon hearing the execution of these men, Pope Francis stated, “The blood of our Christian brothers is a testimony that cries out. Be they Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, Lutheran, it doesn’t matter. They’re Christians.”
This modern-day martyrdom speaks to us as we listen to the First Reading (2 MC 7:1-2, 9-14) during this Sunday’s Mass from the Book of Maccabees. The Scripture reading relates to us the story of seven brothers and their mother who were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to violate God’s law. Rather than give up their beliefs, each one of them succumbed to violent death. They chose “to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him.”
Today many of the world’s powers challenge our Christian values and beliefs such as the sanctify of life in all stages, traditional marriage, and compassion to criminals and prisoners.
Like the martyrs of the past and the present times, we must be brave to stand by our convictions and beliefs. We must persistently and courageously resist and reject the criticisms and arrogance of people who do not share our beliefs?
The prayer of St. Paul in his Letter to the Thessalonians suits this longing for courage: “May our Lord Jesus himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement and good hope through his grace encourage your hearts and strengthen them in every good deed and word.” (2 THES 3:5)
In our fidelity to our Christian beliefs Jesus assures us of everlasting life. In the Gospel this Sunday (LK 20:27, 34-38) he told the Sadducees, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming of age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in to marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children God because they are the one who will rise.”
May our share in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ embolden our hearts to be faithful to our Christian values and beliefs! Amen.
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From a Filipino immigrant family, Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas was ordained to the priesthood from St. John’s Seminary in 1991. He served as Associate Pastor at St. Augustine, Culver City (1991-1993); St. Martha, Valinda (1993-1999); and St. Joseph the Worker, Canoga Park (1999-2001). In 2001, he served as Administrator Pro Tem of St. John Neumann in Santa Maria, CA, until his appointment as pastor of ImmAaculate Heart of Mary, Los Angeles, in 2002, which lasted 12 years. His term as Associate Director of Pastoral Field Education at St. John’s Seminary began in July 2014.
