Contemplating Martyrdom

Lately I have been thinking about martyrdom. I'm not really sure from whence this has come into my thoughts. Perhaps it was a very vivid dream I had sometime around Christmas. I was talking with a woman whom I was going to invite to our home for a Japanese dinner. We were having a lovely chat. (The woman was no one in particular that I knew). Then I walked out of her home and fell in line with a large group of Christians who were also walking down the street. I suddenly realized, "I'm never going to have her over for dinner, am I?" And while I was filled with emotion when I thought about my children and my husband, I was also filled with a purposeful peace. It was evident that all of us were marching off to be executed for being Christians. I woke just as I saw it was going to be death by beheading.

This was a vivid dream, but it wasn't frightening. It was, I don't know... bracing I guess I would say.

I have to say I face many instances even throughout my routine day that strike me with a hint of this same kind of bracing quality. Every time I consciously stop myself from reacting as I don't want to with my children. Every time I choose to get up and do a task I'd rather put off. Every time I take courage to say something or interact instead of just giving it up. I guess it is every time grace moves me in these ordinary moments (making them really quite extraordinary.)

Then yesterday at Mass I had one of those light bulb moments where something I've known took on a completely new aura of reality for me. And that thing goes something like this: Years ago I heard Scott Hahn speak on a covenantal understanding of the sacraments and how receiving Holy Communion is akin to swearing an oath. Jesus swore His oath to the Father, and as we enter into the New Covenant in His blood, we answer with our lives, swearing an oath. (Sorry, I'm a bit rusty on the whole thing right now, but if you want to investigate the idea as he presents it there are lots of resources floating around out there to do so...) But the point of an oath is essentially to pledge one's self unto death to bind oneself to the partner in the oath. This is what Jesus did for us, and this is how we encounter Him in the sacraments.

To say it with the bluntness as it entered my mind, to receive Holy Communion is to pledge oneself to follow Jesus unto the death, by His grace.

Perhaps this sounds odd, but to me, contemplating death is a beautiful way to live. When I think of death, I see more clearly that love alone matters in living, that small material beauties are just that: small, material, and beautiful -- and as such they mirror something eternal. It is only in this way they speak of true value. Death gives perspective. Death gives courage.

(Maybe I've read too much poetry, but honestly I haven't touched Emily Dickinson in decades!)

All these little moments in my daily life that I mentioned earlier are little practice deaths. I leave behind my comfort and step by grace into God's greater way of peace.


And I realize that at each Mass the words I hear in Scripture and in an exhortation are like the words of Ignatius of Antioch, meant to impart courage to others who might at any moment face giving their ultimate sacrifice for Christ. When life depends on it, doesn't every word of the Beloved resound in our ears like beauty itself? In the Eucharistic prayer, I see my Beloved going before me, willingly giving Himself for me, and to me, and leading the way. In every Eucharistic procession, I relive something like that dream I had. Instead of being beheaded, though, I give my life to Christ in a different way that enables me to give it in every other way I face now or ever will face. The Mass is all about this miraculous place where heaven and earth intersect, where life and death morph into one glorious resurrection.

This is my contemplation.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Psalm 23:4-6