Dear
brothers and sisters in Christ,
This
past Tuesday morning, two jihadists entered the Church of the Gambetta in
Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, France about 9:45 a.m. while Father Jacques Hamel was
offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The two men forced the eighty-five
year old priest to kneel near the altar – while still wearing his sacred
vestments – and slit his throat in the name of the Islamic State.[1] Father Jacques fell to the
ground and died, and – if social media postings are any early indication – will
produce great fruit through his martyrdom (cf. John 12:24).
When
he met his death, Father Jacques was filling in for another priest. His last
act, then, was one of a triple generosity: he helped a brother priest have a
few days of rest; he died while offering the Eucharist; and he died defending
his congregation as best he could before his attackers killed him. Well could
Father Jacques make the words of the Psalmist his own: “zeal for your house
consumes me, and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me” (Psalm 69:10).
Too often do we
think of the age of the martyrs as an historical period from more than
seventeen hundred years ago, but, in reality, we are living in the Age of the
Martyrs in a way our forebears in the faith never did. In point of fact,
The high-end estimate for the number
of Christians killed for the faith in the world today every year, which comes
from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, is around 100,000. Other
observers believe the number is much lower, perhaps closer to 8,000. (Much
depends on how one defines a death “for the faith.”)
Even that low-end estimate, however,
works out to one new martyr every hour of every day.[2]
If we take the
high estimate, it means that 11 Christians shed their blood for Christ every
hour of every day. Either way, the statistic is staggering and means that during
our time together for this TEC Encounter 2016, between 47 and 517 Christians
will die as martyrs because of their faith in Jesus Christ. It is a sobering
reality and one to which we give too little consideration.
When Father
Jacques first encountered Christ, the Lord ignited a fire in his heart and set
it aflame with love for Jesus. Throughout his life, this love burned gently in
his heart and, in the end, consumed him as it united him with the one who said,
“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies
will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26).
Is not the goal
of the Teens Encounter Christ movement to help our young men and women also encounter
the Lord Jesus Christ? Is not our purpose, our mission, to cooperate with the
grace of God as we strive to help ignite a fire burning with love for Jesus within
the hearts of young men and women? The
answer, of course, to both questions is a resounding “yes,” as we can see if we
have a little etymological fun.
Our English word
“encounter” comes, ultimately, from the Latin word incontra, meaning “in front of,” as in “against.” Curiously, it
comes to us through the thirteenth century French word encontrer, meaning to “meet, come across; confront, fight, oppose,”
though it is not recorded in English for another three hundred years. We can
see, then, that the meaning, the connotation, of the word encounter has changed
rather significantly over the centuries. In this change we can see something of
the experience of many of the candidates we welcome into the Teens Encounter
Christ movement.
How many of our
candidates have we watched struggle on Die Day? How many candidates resisted
acknowledging their sins? How many fought to keep their hearts closed as we
tried to help them examine their ideals, as we sought to help them recognize
the experience of God, to understand the Paschal Mystery, and to convert their
hearts? In this encounter with the Lord, they felt themselves set against him;
they thought themselves to be strong, but found Christ stronger (cf. Matthew 12:29). Some refused to allow their hearts to be pierced and ran away, but
others chose to yield to the power of Christ’s love and were overcome by him.
When they finally
allowed their hearts to fall to the ground and die, to be pierced by the
burning love of the Crucified, was not their joy and peace on Rise Day and Go
Day all the greater and their fruit in the Forth Day all the more bountiful? Their
encounter with Christ that at first was something of a confrontation became
something of a meeting, an encounter – as we use the word today - of one heart
with another in sacramental confession. It is in this moment that we hope to
assist in the conflagration of hearts, that when the Lord comes with his angels
and his saints he will find the earth already burning, having been ignited by
us with the fire of his love.
As we gather
this weekend, we will hear repeatedly these words of the Master and Teacher: “I
came to cast fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled” (Luke
12:49)! What is this fire but “the saving message of the gospel and the power
of its commandments?”[3]
We have already opened our hearts to this saving message; our hearts have
already been ignited by this fire; and we strive, in ways both large and small,
to keep it burning brightly. We received this fire when we were baptized into
Christ and when we were sealed with the seven-fold gifts of the Holy Spirit, as
did most of our candidates. Even so, we must continually remind ourselves that
“with its fire, love makes whatever it has touched better.”[4]
But if this is
the case, why are we so often hesitant to yield to the fire of the Lord’s love,
to allow it be stirred up into flame? Do we not want to be better? The reason
is simple: “These flaming words from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ reveal
the malice of sin.”[5]
When the Lord comes in his glory, he will indeed set the world ablaze, as Saint
Paul teaches:
for the Day will disclose it, because
it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what each one has done. If
the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a
reward. If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself
will be saved, but only as through fire (I Corinthians 3:13-15).
But for those
who remain friendship with the Lord Jesus and keep their lives free of mortal
sin, this fire is not to be feared, painful though it may be. Indeed,
the fire which both burns and saves
is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the
decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This
encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to
become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere
straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when
the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies
salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably
painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which
the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become
totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation
between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not
immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least
continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed,
it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of
judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over
all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our
salvation and our joy.[6]
Here, again, we
see the two meanings of the word encounter, the original meaning and the
current meaning. We, as members of the Teens Encounter Christ movement, must
strive to first prepare ourselves for this final encounter with Christ, for
this final judgment of merciful love, and only afterwards to prepare our candidates,
Wheaties, and resources for this encounter.
What gave Father
Jacques the strength not to run away from his attackers? It was certainly
possible, because one of the Sisters ran for the police. I suspect he did not
seek to run away because he had already allowed his heart to be set ablaze with
the fire of God’s love and nothing else mattered to him; nothing else mattered
but being with Jesus. May the same be said of us! Amen.
[1] See Martin Fricker, Tom Parry,
Peter Allen, and Sophie Evans, “ISIS knifemen forced French priest to kneel andfilmed themselves slitting his throat in horror church attack,” Mirror, 26 July 2016. Accessed 27 July
2016.
[2] John L. Allen, Jr., “Memo to WYD:Forget the program, teach youth about the martyrs,” Crux, 27 July 2016. Accessed 27 July 2016.
[3] Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Luke, Homily 94. In Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture:
New Testament Vol III: Luke. Arthur A. Just, Jr., ed. (Downers Grove,
Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2003), 217.
[4] Saint Ambrose of Milan, Isaac, Or the Soul, 8.77. In ibid.
[5] Saint Basil the Great, Concerning Baptism, 1.2. In ibid.
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