A Penitent Blogger on "Worth being killed?"

Penitens, A Penitent Blogger notices something different about two kinds of believers. Amazing as it sounds, but somehow Reasonable commentators didn't see this:

Yesterday, the world saw a woman matter-of-factly describe how she had tried to kill people by blowing herself up in the middle of a wedding reception.

In today’s first reading (1 Maccabees 1:10-15,41-43,54-57,62-63), people choose to be killed rather than eat non-kosher food.

614 years ago today, a Franciscan priest named Nicholas Tavelic was killed for preaching Christ and refusing to recant.

Irreligious people try to lump all of this and more under the category of deadly religious extremism, but the differences are overwhelming.

The would-be bomber and her accomplices intended horrific objective evils: to die by their own hand and to kill innocent people deliberately.

The people in today’s first reading intended and committed no objective evil, they sought only to be faithful to God’s command: they do not die by their own hand, but are killed at the hands of a super-conformist society.

St. Nicholas Tavelic likewise sought only to be faithful to God’s command, knowing it was nearly certain that he would be killed by a super-conformist society.

There is nothing worth killing oneself for.

But there are things worth being killed for.

Now, this shrewd observation really mucks up the Reasonable individual absolutists' message. How can they convince everyone how Foolish all religious believers are if some of them insist on acting so noble? Who wouldn't find those that surrender their lives for their beliefs inspiring? The Reasonable have no answer for the martyr. They can only scream louder how Foolish and extremist those Fools are. But they're not truly the problem: We Fools are.

Let's face it; we're daunted by the martyrs' witness. Sure, we would love to possess such Faith. We want to demonstrate such hope in the Lord. We'd love to show the world such love for God. But we just can't get past the cost.

We reflect on our families. We consider the good we do through the lives we live. We cry over the loss of all we hold dear, much of it the good our Lord has entrusted to us. We shudder to think what might happen to those we leave behind.

Or, even worse, we don't even consider the surrender of our life as a possibility. Because, as Penitens so wisely discerns, we're afraid. We fear the ridicule of a Reasonable world and even of some of our fellow Fools. We fear the shame of bearing the scorn of those we love. But deep down, we fear the most dread terror of all: the fear of "what if?"

What if? The very idea was the cornerstone of Roman Imperial propaganda. It remains the potent poison of our mind and hearts today. The What if? that most frightens us as Christians and Fools is this: What if the Reasonable are right? What if there's no God? What if God doesn't matter? What if we're wasting our lives for nothing?

Many of us have experienced the desert of prayer. We fall to our knees and tear open our hearts before the Lord, only to taste the dryness of his seeming neglect. We cry out for guidance in the night, only to hear the empty sound of our own lost thoughts. We long for the presence of God while we wrestle with his apparent absence. In all of these experiences, we face the temptation to believe in Nothing. What if? is the strongest expression of that temptation. In the heart of doubt, it urges us to surrender to our own despair and not seek the demands of our Loving God. Especially if those demands include martyrdom.

But what Foolables would we be if we entertained such temptations? Does our God not offer us a way out of this trap? Or do we not believe the Apostle. No, God allows us to be tempted only to the limits of our strenght. We can trust in him. That's the essence of Faith. Whatever occurs in our lives, let us join it with our God. Even when he seems absent, his presence envelops us. Even when he offers silence to our petitions, he hears our prayer. Even when we taste the bitter dryness of the desert, we can count on the Lord to refreshen us. He has not forsaken his people; he gave his only son over to a shameful execution in order to forever remain at our side.

Let us trust in the Lord. Let us give truly of ourselves to him and to those he calls us to. Perhaps then we'll find the courage even to surrender our lives, should our Faith call for no less. For we'll have welcomed into our hearts the very life he gives us through his Grace. And his Grace is always sufficient.