30/08/2024

The Martyrs, whose faith is remembered by the Church today, were not the only ones killed by a State which was to claim for itself a "divine right" and whose previous ruler had committed similar atrocities against the other side only only twenty years previously, were not the only victims of the religious wars of the 17th Century. We remember too that Jesus also was killed by an alliance between Sate and Religion.

St Paul is unlike most of the other Apostles in that he was well-educated. Jesus brought about his complete conversion when he was on the first of his missionary journeys. Having taken part in the Martyrdom of Stephen, he was going to Damascus  to nip in the bud the start of belief in the Resurrection that was beginning there. 

To have been chosen for this task by the Chief Priests of the Temple tells us that Saul was known to be a learned and devout young man well able to justify the defence of the Law which was still challenged by the followers of Jesus who, although they thought had been silenced by the show of  combined priestly and secular power on Calvary, was in fact beginning to assemble  his mystical body, the Church, to continue his work of revelation, the  Love of God.

Millions of us since that moment owe the coherence of our thinking and understanding of the Good News of Scripture, Old and New to the preaching and writing of this Jew, born in Tarsus but educated in the school of Gamliel in Jerusalem.

Today he tells us that all legalism, even Baptism, is secondary in the light of the Crucifixion, the event that changes the world for ever. The notions of Ancient Greek philosophers are still prized, studied and wondered at by today's human and artificial intelligences but it is the sound of hammers on nails going through living human flesh that still reverberates throughout the Universe.

The material world in which all human life takes place has convinced many to believe that this life on earth is the limit of our beings. "What you see is what you get". All philosophy boils down to this. 

"But I say to you". The Life of Christ on Earth is the eternal real-time revelation of the true wonder of our being. The heroic deaths of Margaret Clitherow, Ann Line and Margaret Ward show us the limits to which we can go in witness to our Faith, as do those of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley thirty years previously.

Dear Lord, I thank you that I am still living with the hope you have given to all mankind. We are able to live out our lives in obedience to your will. We can all know that "life" is keeping our souls focused on FatherSonHolySpirit and that the philosophies and religions of solely material lives, although wonderfully constructed by praiseworthy men, if not founded on Your self revelation contained in Your Old and New Testaments are as much time-fillers and time-wasters as the tripe I semi-watch on TV. May I live throughout this day in the laser beam of Love that you focus on each individual. Let my Faith be strengthened by the prayers of the Martyrs whose Faith was tested by their place in your providence as is that of us all and may Mary lead the Angels and Saints in praise of and pleas for your Mercy to shower down as was the hope for rose petals of Little St Therese.