The Spirit of Truth

Often enough, people don’t want to hear the truth, especially when it’s stark and perhaps a bit frightening, the kind of truth that denies their Weltanschauung and their hopes for the future, as well as the hopes and lives of those they love. I suppose that’s a normal human response when things seem to be going reasonably well, and then someone comes along and insists on a very different view of the world. 

But as faithful Christians we cannot view our lives through a worldly lens. For us the truth is always “Good News” even when, to the worldly, it seems very bad indeed. After all, Jesus is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” [Jn 14:6]. When the world and its confusion and hatreds pour into our lives, we Christians should be joyful because it’s an opportunity to suffer for the proclamation of the Gospel.

Oops! Wait a minute! Most Christians in the West don’t expect to suffer simply because they go to church on Sunday and drop a few bucks in the collection basket. And yet, here we are, facing what could be another era of persecution. Don’t believe it? Just look around the world and realize it’s on its way to you and to me…and a lot sooner than we probably think. But the Church has been there before, many times; and yet the Church is still here and will be here until the end. Although in the US and in Europe, the Church appears to be in decline, this isn’t true globally. In Africa and in much of Asia the Church is growing, just as it grew in its earliest years.

We need only look to that early Church and its response to persecution. Tertullian (died c. 220 A.D.) was a lawyer (we’ll forgive him for that) who converted to Christianity largely due to the courage of condemned Christians he witnessed as they went to their deaths singing hymns. His ultimate response, one directed to the Roman Empire:

“We are not a new philosophy but a divine revelation. That’s why you can’t just exterminate us; the more you kill the more we are. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. You praise those who endured pain and death – so long as they aren’t Christians! Your cruelties merely prove our innocence of the crimes you charge against us…

Yes, indeed, "the seed of the Church." God calls us Christians to sacrifice and actually expects His disciples to give everything for Him: evangelization without compromise. But that's a truth few of the lukewarm want to hear, much less think about. The signs, though, are there for all to see. The persecution of Christians today is greater than at any other time in history. And where is the Church growing? Wherever it suffers persecution.

In many parts of the world, the United States included, persecution of Christians is subtle but still very real. But for Nigerian Christians there’s nothing subtle about the deadly persecution they must face daily. For example, Christians in northern Nigeria are the most religiously persecuted people on earth. According to Open Doors, in 2022 roughly 90% of the world’s Christian martyrs — which equates to over 5,000 Christians — were slaughtered for their faith in this part of Nigeria. Who's been murdering them? Islamists. This has been going on for a long time. In the past 15 years 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants. They not only kill Christians — men, women, and children — but also destroy churches, over 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools were set ablaze during this same period. And if you’re a moderate Muslim who objects to such genocide, the Islamists will kill you too. Approximately 34,000 moderate Nigerian Muslims died in Islamist attacks.

Megan Meador, communications director of Aid to the Church in Need (ACD) describes the situation faced by Christians and others in today’s Nigeria:

“The persecution comes from terrorists, from machete-wielding militias, from mob violence and laws that implicitly encourage them, and from authorities who are indifferent to the mayhem and shrug off these atrocities, allowing perpetrators to go free while punishing victims…We’ve had cases where Christians have been hauled in front of Sharia courts, without jurisdiction, and accused of crimes like apostasy, which is not supposed to be a crime in Nigeria…We are right now supporting a Sufi Muslim young singer, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, who was sentenced to death on blasphemy accusations for posting lyrics to social media, and is now challenging that law at the Supreme Court. Nigeria needs to fully practice what is protected under its Constitution.”

ACD is a strong and constant supporter of religious freedom throughout the world. In Nigeria ACD's work includes defending Christians from legal attacks, false accusations, and discrimination. It also supports those who are threatened by blasphemy laws if they express religious beliefs openly. Both Open Doors and ACD deserve our support for the wonderful work they do.

To get a sense of what Nigerian Christians must cope with, their remarkable response, and its effect on evangelization and conversion, follow this link to a recent article in the Catholic Herald: Numbers of African Catholics Boom as Church in Europe Continues to Shrink.

It seems the future of Christianity, and specifically the Catholic Church, is no longer in the United States or Europe. As one Congolese priest told me not long ago, "What we're experiencing in Africa today is a reenactment of the Acts of the Apostles." Why should we expect otherwise? After all, didn't Jesus tell Nicodemus:

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or wither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" [Jn 3:6-8].

Yes, indeed, the Spirit blows where it wills, not where you and I will.

Pray for those persecuted for their Faith.

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Oh, yes, a postscript: the State Department has inexplicably left Nigeria off its Religious Freedom Watch List (for the third year) despite the widespread slaughter of Christians in that nation. Once again, the Biden administration demonstrates its indifference to the lives and religious freedom of Christians. Here's a link to a 2021 story when Secretary of State Blinken first removed Nigeria from the watch list: Catholic News Agency -- nothing has apparently changed in three years.

Homily: Wednesday, 34th Week of Ordinary Time

Readings: Dn 5:1-28; Dn 3; Luke 21.12-19

If the gospel message is good news, then why do so many oppose it with hostility and even violence? Jesus warns us that we’ll be confronted with persecution, evil, false teaching, and temptation. And how does He tell us to respond to all this? With love, with truth, with forgiveness.

Only God’s love can defeat bigotry, hatred, envy, and all that would divide and tear us apart. Only God’s truth can overcome the lies and confusion in the world. And that’s what the Gospel is, God's Word of truth and salvation.

And so Jesus tells his disciples to proclaim the gospel throughout the whole world, even in the midst of opposition and persecution. If they persevere to the end they will gain their lives – they will see God's salvation. Such endurance doesn't come from human effort. It’s a supernatural gift of the Holy Spirit, a gift strengthened by the hope that we’ll see God face to face and inherit His promises.

In this, as in all things, Jesus is our model: Jesus who endured the cross for our sake and salvation; Jesus who calls us to love, to die to ourselves.

Did you know the Greek root of the word martyr means witness? And true martyrs live and die as witnesses to the Gospel. The Book of Revelation calls Jesus “the faithful witness...who freed us from our sins by his blood."

And Tertullian, a second century lawyer and Early Church Father, converted when he saw Christians singing as they went out to die at the hands of their persecutors. He compared the blood of the martyrs to seed, the seed of new Christians, the seed of the church.

St. Augustine spoke of this too: "The martyrs were bound, jailed, scourged, racked, burned, rent, butchered – and they multiplied!" Christians multiplied because the martyrs witnessed to the truth, to the joy and freedom of the Gospel; and they did so through the testimony of their lives.

And down through the centuries Christian martyrs have continued to give their lives for their faith, and for the love and truth of Jesus Christ. Indeed, today we honor a modern martyr, Blessed Miguel Pro, who was executed in Mexico on November 23, 1927 in the midst of the fierce anti-Catholic persecutions perpetrated under President Plutarco Elias Calles. Blessed Miguel, a Jesuit priest, spread his arms wide in imitation of Christ on the Cross as he stood before the firing squad. His last words just before the shots rang out were "Viva Christo Rey!" (Long live Christ the King).

Blessed Miguel Pro standing before the firing squad on Nov. 23, 1927

The martyrs witness to the truth, the great truth about our loving God: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”

“God so loved the world…” He doesn’t love just part of it. No, He loves it all. He loves each of us. It can’t be otherwise because He created each human being in an individual act of love.

We must remember that Jesus died on the cross for Jews and Gentiles, Christians and Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, agnostics and atheists. By our witness as Christians others will recognize Christ’s victory on the cross, his power to overcome sin, fear and hatred, even death itself. When the world looks at us it has the right to find in us a reflection of the glory of the Trinity. The world has a right to discover in our faith, hope, and love a testimony to the Holy Spirit’s presence.

The problems that have arisen in Christ’s Church over the centuries, and exist even now, are not caused by the Holy Spirit; they’re caused by the mediocrity of Christians. As G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

What brings others to Jesus Christ and His Church is seeing Christians loving their enemies; seeing us joyful in suffering, patient in adversity, forgiving of injuries, and showing comfort and compassion to the hopeless and the helpless.

This, brothers and sisters, is our calling.