Rejoice
in the Lord, you just – this is what we hear proclaimed in the psalm this
morning. Yet, sometimes is difficult to
rejoice in the reality of our lives, in the sufferings and trials that we
endure in life.
When I
was looking at the list of saints for today, I saw the name St Richard
Martin. He was a devout Catholic
layperson who was arrested and martyred in the year 1588 for giving shelter to
priests during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in England when the Catholic
Church was outlawed. Can we imagine
having to give up out lives for wanting to live out our faith? Perhaps with what we see going on in the
secular world today, making sacrifices for the faith even up to the point of
giving up our lives does not seem so far-fetched.
There
was a time when one had to be a martyr in order to be named a saint. However, I do think there is a lot to learn
from the saints and how they lived their lives.
They are just dusty pages from an old history book or from an
old-fashioned faith that doesn’t exist anymore.
Richard Martin and the other Catholics who died while trying to live out
their faith in the years after Henry VIII tried to outlaw the Catholic Church
in England show us the courage and sacrifices people have made in order to live
out their faith and to pass along that faith to others. We live in a society where sacrifice is often
scoffed at. How are we called to
courageously live out our faith and to rejoice in the Lord no matter what our
circumstances are in life?
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