“I will follow you” – innocent words that a scribe speaks to Jesus. This scribe might really mean these words, but Jesus’ response to them shows that perhaps there is more to following him than might be on the surface. A. We have been celebrating the Religious Freedom Week, bringing attention of how important it is for us to have the freedom to practice our religion. During this time period, we celebrated the lives of important martyrs in our faith, including St John Fisher and St Thomas More – two men who were martyred for the faith during the reign of Henry VIII in England. Tomorrow, we will celebrate the lives of St Peter and St Paul, apostles and martyrs who were great leaders in the Early Church. On Wednesday, we will honor the First Roman Martyrs, men and women who died for their faith when they were blamed for the great fire that burned the city of Rome in the year 62, not many years after Christ’s death and resurrection.
St Irenaeus is the saint we commemorate today. He was born around the year 130 in Smyrna is present-day Turkey. He saw the greatest threat to the faith not the persecutions from the Roman Empire, but rather the philosophy of Gnosticism that was influencing many Christian believers. One of the strongest beliefs in Gnosticism sees a dualism in the material world vs. the spiritual world. Gnostics saw the spiritual world as superior to the material world – they saw a stark contrast between the God of creation and the God of salvation. Irenaeus defended the connection between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He saw the material world as being intrinsically good as part of God’s creation and God’s kingdom here on earth. He died a martyr for the faith around the year 202 defending these beliefs while he served as the Bishop of Lyon in present-day France.
May St Irenaeus and the other saints and martyrs we commemorate during Religious Freedom Week give us encouragement and courage on our own journey of faith.
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