7/17/2012 – Tuesday of 15th week of ordinary time – The Carmelite Nuns of Compiegne, France – Matthew 11:20-24

         We hear Jesus bemoan the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida in today’s Gospel.  He tells the inhabitants of those cities that they are doomed for their failure to repent and their failure to recognize the miracles that are performed in their midst.  We might want to be judgmental ourselves to those inhabitants who fail to respond to Jesus with faith and trust, yet perhaps this Gospel reading is speaking directly to us today as well.  How often do we ourselves have Jesus present to us in our own lives, yet we are unable to recognize his presence in our midst and do not respond out of our faith.  How often do we put our faith in our secular world instead of putting our faith in God?  How often do the values of our world lure us away from the values of our faith?

         We recognize 16 Carmelite nuns as the saints of the day that most people in our modern world don’t even know about.  The government that took control during the French revolution ordered the Carmelite monastery in the town of Compiegne closed in 1790.  Yet, in 1794, 16 nuns were arrested on charges of living in a religious community, which was against the law in post-revolutionary France.  The nuns were sentenced to death in Paris, and were killed on the guillotine while they sang the Salve Regina.  They refused to bow to a government that condemned their Christian way of life.  Today, we have a media that tells people that they should abandon organized religion.  We have a government that tries to define what religion is and what it isn’t.  We are told by our government that we have to violate the Gospel of Life that we see proclaimed in Christ’s Gospel.  I wonder who Jesus would condemn in our world today.  I also wonder how far all of this will go and who will become the martyrs of modern America.  Our Bishops have been mocked and derided for the Fortnight for Freedom that we just observed several weeks ago.  In hearing the story of the Carmelite nuns who were martyred in France and Jesus condemnation of the cities that refused to repent and to see the signs around them, we should be thanking our bishops for their courage and foresight.