This Is Love!

Here is an extraordinary letter written from prison by a Spanish boy to his girlfriend on the eve of his martyrdom. He was 21 and a leader of Catholic Action. His last words at execution were: "Long live Christ the King!"

Provincial prison of Jaen, Oct. 1, 1936

My dearest Maruja:

Your memory will remain with me to the grave and, as long as the slightest throb stirs my heart, it will beat for love of you. God has deemed fit to sublimate these worldly affections, ennobling them when we love each other in him. Though in my final days, God is my light and what I long for, this does not mean that the recollection of the one dearest to me will not accompany me until the hour of my death.

I am assisted by many priests who -- what a sweet comfort -- pour out the treasures of grace into my soul, strengthening it. I look death in the eye and, believe my words, it does not daunt me or make me afraid.

My sentence before the court of mankind will be my soundest defense before God's court; in their effort to revile me, they have ennobled me; in trying to sentence me, they have absolved me, and by attempting to lose me, they have saved me. Do you see what I mean? Why, of course! Because in killing me, they grant me true life and in condemning me for always upholding the highest ideals of religion, country and family, they swing open before me the doors of heaven.

My body will be buried in a grave in this cemetery of Jaen; while I am left with only a few hours before that definitive repose, allow me to ask but one thing of you: that in memory of the love we shared, which at this moment is enhanced, that you would take on as your primary objective the salvation of your soul. In that way, we will procure our reuniting in heaven for all eternity, where nothing will separate us.

Goodbye, until that moment, then, dearest Maruja! Do not forget that I am looking at you from heaven, and try to be a model Christian woman, since, in the end, worldly goods and delights are of no avail if we do not manage to save our souls.

My thoughts of gratitude to all your family and, for you, all my love, sublimated in the hours of death. Do not forget me, my Maruja, and let my memory always remind you there is a better life, and that attaining it should constitute our highest aspiration.

Be strong and make a new life; you are young and kind, and you will have God's help, which I will implore upon you from his kingdom. Goodbye, until eternity, then, when we shall continue to love each other for life everlasting.

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Testimony to a Grandmother's Martyrdom

From the moving story of Bl. Teresa Cejudo, Spanish martyr, by her granddaughter. Read the whole story here.

Caballero said Blessed Teresa Cejudo was very active at the Salesian school in her town and “helped distribute food to poor families and taught children unable to attend school to read and write.” She was put in prison for over a month in Pozoblanco and was shot at the cemetery together with seventeen others. “She was very strong at that time,” Caballero continued. “She said goodbye to her only daughter, my mother, and she was shot last because that was what she requested. She asked not to have her eyes covered, she wanted to die looking at death in the face, which she did not fear, because she was dying for God. She encouraged her seventeen companions not to deny God or their faith.”

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"Let Us Test What Will Happen at the End of His Life"

Speaking of martyrs, the Office of Readings offered a timely reading from Wisdom today. This is the selection in the RSV:

[1:16] But ungodly men by their words and deeds summoned death;
considering him a friend, they pined away,
and they made a covenant with him,
because they are fit to belong to his party. (Wis 1:16)

[2:12]"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
[13] He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
[14] He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
[15] the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
[16] We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
[17] Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
[18] for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
[19] Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
[20] Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

[21] Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray,
for their wickedness blinded them,
[22] and they did not know the secret purposes of God,
nor hope for the wages of holiness,
nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
[23] for God created man for incorruption,
and made him in the image of his own eternity,
[24] but through the devil's envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his party experience it.

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Fidelity to Christ Rooted in Baptism

The Holy Father, on beatifying 498 Spanish martyrs, reminded Christians that their baptism binds them to faithfulness to Christ even to death. From Zenit:

"Adding such a great number of martyrs to the list of beatified persons shows that the supreme witness of giving blood is not an exception reserved only to some individuals, but a realistic possibility for all Christian people. It includes men and women of different ages, vocations and social conditions, who pay with their lives in fidelity to Christ and his Church."

The Pontiff said that fidelity to Christ, even to the point of giving one's life, is rooted in baptism.

"Their example gives witness to the fact that baptism commits Christians to participate boldly in the spread of the Kingdom of God, cooperating if necessary with the sacrifice of one's own life," he said. "Certainly not everyone is called to a bloody martyrdom. There is also an unbloody 'martyrdom,' which is no less significant, such as that of Celina Chludzinska Borzecka, wife, mother, widow and religious, beatified yesterday in Rome: It is the silent and heroic testimony of many Christians who live the Gospel without compromises, fulfilling their duty and dedicating themselves generously in service to the poor.

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The Cause of Bishop Claverie of Algeria

Until today, I was unfamiliar with the story of this martyr of Algeria. John Allen gives a fascinating account of a timely saint. Here's an excerpt:

In many ways, the late Bishop Pierre Claverie of Oran, Algeria, who was assassinated in 1996, and whose cause for sainthood recently opened along with 18 other martyrs of a bloody civil war that left 150,000 Algerians dead, could be a prime candidate for just such a simplification.

Claverie's death was part of the carnage created by the Islamic Salvation Front, a template for radical Islamic movements elsewhere. In that context, Claverie could seem a symbol for Christian martyrdom at the hands of jihadists, a patron saint for Catholic hawks in the "clash of civilizations." This was a man, after all, fully aware of the peril that stalked him, who refused to walk away, saying, "I cannot abandon Algeria to the Islamists."

On the other hand, Claverie was also a man of dialogue down to his bones; at his funeral in 1996, Algerian Muslim mourners described him as "the bishop of the Muslims too." Hence the doves could also stake a claim to his memory, as a sort of spiritual antipode to Islamophobia and the "war on terrorism."

Fortunately, we have a firebreak against such reductionist readings of Claverie's life and death: the powerful new biography A Life Poured Out, written by Fr. Jean-Jacques Pérennès, a personal friend of Claverie as well as a fellow Dominican. The book has already been published in French and Arabic, and is now available in English from Orbis.

In a time when discussion of Christian/Muslim relations is dominated by ideology and abstract theological debate, Claverie represents an utterly different path: a life lived as a "guest in the house of Islam," not blind to the challenges and never fuzzy about his Christian identity, but relentless in his commitment to friendship. Claverie's interest was what he called the "real, living Islam," meaning people rather than theories.

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St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Ephesians

The last days are here. So let us abase ourselves and stand in awe of God's patience, lest it turn out to be our condemnation. Either let us fear the wrath to come or let us value the grace we have: one or the other. Only let our lot be genuine life in Jesus Christ.  Do not let anything catch your eye besides him, for whom I carry around these chains—my spiritual pearls! Through them I want to rise from the dead by your prayers. May I ever share in these, so that I may be numbered among the Ephesian Christians who, by the might of Jesus Christ, have always been of one mind with the very apostles.  I realize who I am and to whom I am writing. I am a convict; you have been freed. I am in danger; you are safe. You are the route for God's victims. You have been initiated into the [Christian] mysteries with Paul, a real saint and martyr, who deserves to be congratulated. When I come to meet God may I follow in his footsteps, who in all his letters mentions your union with Christ Jesus.

Try to gather together more frequently to celebrate God's Eucharist and to praise him. For when you meet with frequency, Satan's powers are overthrown and his destructiveness is undone by the unanimity of your faith.  There is nothing better than peace, by which all strife in heaven and earth is done away.

You will not overlook any of this if you have a thorough belief in Jesus Christ and love him. That is the beginning and end of life: faith the beginning and love the end.

Early Christian Fathers

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Contemporary Martyrs in North Korea

From Newsweek 10/1/07 via Crossroads:

During the first part of his life in North Korea, Son Jong Nam had it good. As the son of a high-ranking officer in the all-powerful military, Son never had to worry about getting enough food, and after he joined the Army himself, his background helped him land a spot in an elite unit that guarded North Korea's leaders.

But then things began to change. In the mid-1990s, plagued by natural catastrophes and stripped of support from its erstwhile Soviet sponsor, the North saw its economy plunge into a tailspin. One day Son's pregnant wife made a carelessly critical remark about the country's mismanagement. The next thing they knew, she'd been taken in for questioning. One of her interrogators kicked her in the stomach, triggering a miscarriage. Disillusioned, the Sons decided to defect to the South. In 1998 they took their young daughter and slipped over the border into China. But Son's wife died after the crossing, and Son, bereft, soon met a South Korean missionary who was there to help North Korean refugees find their way to freedom. Through him, Son discovered Christianity and decided to convert, joining the growing legions of desperate North Koreans who are turning toward God. This led to Son's next step, which may yet prove fatal: he resolved to head back to the North in 2004 in order to bring the Gospel to others.

Today Son finds himself on death row in Pyongyang, awaiting execution for the crime of spreading his faith. North Korea theoretically allows religious freedom; it even maintains Potemkin cathedrals, where worshipers are supposedly welcome and ersatz services, staffed by loyal communist party cadres, are held each Sunday. In reality, however, the government of Kim Jong Il has a history of persecuting believers in the most savage of ways, including public execution. Religion, say activists, is viewed as a particular threat by Kim, who, like his father, Kim Il Sung, stands at the center of a bizarre personality cult with numerous religious overtones. "To be a Christian [in North Korea] is not just to follow a different religion," says Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs, an American Christian organization. "It's really seen almost as treason against their whole political system—a system built to deify the leader." Nettleton and his allies in the United States and South Korea are now trying to save Son's life by bringing international pressure to bear on Pyongyang. In the process, they're also drawing attention to a phenomenon little noticed in the outside world: North Korea's growing underground churches, and new legions of Koreans willing to defy their government in the name of God.

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American Jesuit Martyrs Rose Window

Mary's Rose Window, originally uploaded by *clairity*.

Cathedral of St. Paul. "The American Jesuit Martyrs window, on the north side, commemorates the eight American martyrs."

The Meaning of Confessio

Sr. Edith shares the original meaning of "confessio" in Monastic Musings: Italian Musing #3: Confessio. Great photos too.

The confessio contains the remains of the martyr for whom the basilica is named, and sometimes those of other martyrs as well. The confessio, then, is a confession - but of faith, not of sin. Santa Susanna publicly confessed her Christian faith - at a time when it was not legal to be Christian - and made the ultimate confession with her life. Just as martyr derives from the Greek word for witness, the confessio under the altar stands as a statement of belief and faith in the resurrection.

St. Thomas Becket, Martyr

St. Thomas Becket, Martyr

The murder shocked the conscience of all Europe; miracles were announced immediately at the tomb; the archbishop was canonized as a martyr by Alexander III in 1173; the king did public penance at his tomb, and much of what St Thomas had striven for was secured by his death. Canterbury became a place of pilgrimage second only to Rome and perhaps Compostella, and churches were dedicated to St Thomas in all countries, even in the remote Iceland.