Today, we hear the concluding section to Paul’s letter to the Romans. We have been hearing from Romans in our first readings at Mass these past several weeks. Paul addresses his audience in very personal and endearing terms, wanting the Romans to know about his true motives in writing this letter. He tells them of the goodness he sees in them, how he sees them being full of knowledge and being able to instruct one another. Today’s readings show Paul’s zeal and enthusiasm in bringing the Gospel to others, to the Gentiles who are being exposed to God’s holy word for the first time.
As I thought about Paul and his letter to the Romans, I thought about the different missionaries and evangelizers we have had in our faith throughout the ages. I thought about the zeal they had for the Good News of Jesus Christ and the sacrifices they made in practicing their faith. As I was looking at the list of saints in our liturgical calendar for this week, I came across a list of martyrs of the Spanish Civil War who were killed from 1936 to 1939. Approximately 1,000 martyrs from the Spanish Civil War have been beatified or canonized by the last three popes. Those killed in that war include 15 bishops, 4,172 priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars, and 283 nuns – a staggering number who have died for the faith in this very Catholic country. The Spanish Civil War still inspires a lot of conflicting emotions in Spain, but the Vatican responded that these beatifications and canonizations do not pertain to ideology or politics, but rather to the virtue and holiness of the men and women who gave their lives for their faith and their courage in living out their faith and their vocations. As we just celebrated All Saints Day and All Souls Day earlier in the week, let us give thanks for all those men and women who sacrificed and suffered in order that the faith may be passed down to us.
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