Homily

This past Wednesday was the Feast of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste and I thought I would look up their story again. The emperor Constantine issued an edict in the year 313 granting Christians religious freedom and equality with paganism under the law. But Licinius, his co-ruler and a pagan still continued to persecute Christians in the eastern part of the empire. In the year 320 A.D., 40 members of Licinius’ army were accused of being Christian. They were arrested and ordered to renounce their faith. This was in the city of Sebaste which today is in eastern Turkey. According to St. Basil the Great, these soldiers were then ordered to be stripped naked and made to stand overnight on the icy surface of a frozen pond (some accounts say they had to stand in the freezing waters.) A warm bath was set up on the side of the pond for anyone willing to change their mind and renounce their faith. After some hours, one man did give in but he died before he could reach the warmth of the fire. One of the soldiers guarding the men had a vision of a brilliant light surrounding the soldiers on the pond, and it had such a profound effect on him that he professed his allegiance to the God of the Christians and he joined the 39 believers on the ice. The next day, even though a few of the men were still alive, they were all thrown onto a fire to be burnt. Their bones were discovered later and these relics were divided among many churches dedicated to their memory both in the East and the West. Their story was told throughout the Church and it inspired countless numbers of Christians. Besides the account of St. Basil, we also know of their martyrdom from St. Ephrem the Syrian and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

I was thinking about what it might have been like to have been there at that time to have been one of those men, out in the freezing cold of the night for the sake of faith in Christ, shivering and slowly fading away, when all it would take would be to walk away and get warm by that fire over there and then you could go on living—or could you? I tried to imagine what that would be like. All for Christ.

And then the next day, I began to read a book titled, “Christian Persecution in the Middle East.” One New Year’s day in 2011, in Alexandria, Egypt, a car bomb went off outside the Coptic Church of Two Saints. Twenty people were killed and 70 wounded. The next month Egyptian soldiers attacked three monasteries destroying buildings. A priest was found dead having been stabbed 22 times and beheaded. The month after that, 13 Christians were murdered and 120 were wounded in anti-Christian riots in Cairo. Homes and businesses were set on fire as the police stood by and watched. In May of that year, Salafist Muslims attacked and burned three Coptic churches, looted Christian businesses and destroyed 14 Christian homes in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba. Fifteen were killed, 260 wounded.

In Lebanon, in Beirut, October 19, 2010, and two days later in Damascus, Christian communities were attacked. Eighteen were killed and more than 100 injured.

In the town of Sadad, Syria, October 13, 2013, 45 Christians were murdered. Twenty-five hundred families fled from their homes. Many shops and the churches were destroyed. October 31st, 2010, in Baghdad, Iraq, ISIS soldiers attacked the parish of Our Lady of Deliverance Syrian Catholic Cathedral, and 58 parishioners were murdered, including two priests. Seventy were wounded. For the countries most violent against Christians, in the year 2013, Syria takes first place with 1,213 killed, Nigeria next with 612 dead, Pakistan with 88 murdered and Egypt with 83 Christians martyred for their faith. You may have read about 31 Coptic men beheaded by ISIS soldiers last year, but I bet you did not hear anything about the rest of these attacks on believers. Those killed in 2012 included children as young as 7 months, one teen murdered for being Christian, and another teen crucified in Mosul. Fifty-two killed at St. Mathew’s Syrian Orthodox Church in Baghdad. During the Christmas season a year-and-a-half ago, four children under the age of 15 were captured by ISIS men and were told to denounce Jesus and convert to the Muslim faith and follow Muhammed. The children refused. “No, we love Jesus, we have always loved Jesus.” They were beheaded.

While today Muslims are the most notorious group attacking Christians, let’s not forget they are not alone. If it’s not Muslims, then it is Communists, if it’s not Communists, it can be Hindus, if it’s not in the Middle East it will be in Africa, or India or Myanmar.

We live in a county where more and more, people, and especially the young, have no interest in Christian faith. How can we imagine countries where Christians know they could die because they are going to Liturgy? Places where even young children refuse to escape punishment and death because they love Jesus, while we see so many of our own young people trying to escape life through drugs, sex, and materialism. Would you throw some clothes in a suitcase and leave everything behind and walk hundreds of miles to a foreign country for the sake of your faith in Christ, when you could easily stay home and go on with your life if you would just become Muslim? After all it’s the same God isn’t it? The rest of the world cares little about the slaughter of Christians. We read and hear almost nothing about any of it. We have heard many times that Muslims who kill Christians do not represent true Islam. But we never hear that those who are slaughtered for their faith are true Christians.

So, dear friends, the reason that the celebration of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste was placed on March 9th was so that it would be an encouragement to us to persevere to the end in our Lenten lifestyle. Like those soldiers, we should seek a faith we will live in with our whole heart, mind, and soul, we should love a Savior in the same way as they did even if our lives are not on the line. Huge numbers of fellow Christians, fellow Catholics, face homelessness, prison, injury, and even death in many places around the world today. Let us pray for them. Let us be inspired by them. Let us trust, as they do, not in the passing pleasures of this life, but in the hope of the glory of the Resurrection of Christ our Savior.