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The Southern Cross, Page Faitlh AMv®! Thursday, September 14, 2000 Martyrs and the jubilee year FOODFORTHOUGHT f we were to create stained-glass windows today with the symbols of martyrs, we would not use palm branches, or Catherine’s wheel, or Laurence’s gridiron; we would depict electric prods, bullets in the back of the neck, gas chambers.” asked local churches, insofar as pos sible, to collect the stories of martyrs in their area and preserve them. ■ ■ ■ Judging from the pope’s own re marks and from the reflections of theologians, one could advance three important reasons for this emphasis by the pope on martyrdom. —First, to recall the martyrs, espe cially modern and contemporary mar tyrs, is to remind the church that martyrdom is not a phenomenon only All contents copyright© 2000 by CNS many contemporary martyrs died at the hands of those who claimed to kill in defense of “Christian civilization,” as the story of many martyrs in Cen tral and Latin America attests. —Second, the example of the mar tyrs reminds us that because certain values and certain truths are so fun damental, they can and must be de fended even to the death when they are challenged. In other words, martyrdom is the ultimate testimony to truth. The link between martyrdom and truth played emphasis on martyrs is linked to his constant preaching about the universal call to holiness. Vatican Council II in the 1960s insisted that everyone is called to holiness. The council also noted that some few are given the grace of martyrdom — the highest expression of holiness. After all, to die for Christ is to die in imitation of Christ. an important part of Pope John Paul’s encyclical “The Splendor of Truth” where the pope argued that certain moral truths w r ere always to be ob served. One sign of the church’s belief that fundamental truths cannot be compro mised is the honor it pays to those who give up their lives for those truths. The witness of the martyrs both testifies to the truth of the Gospel and is an instru ment of evangelization. —Third, the pope’s jubilee-year By Lawrence S. Cunningham Catholic News Service In the 20th century, more people died for their faith than during the entire period of the Roman pers ou- tions. That fact is part of what Pope John Paul II means when he talks about modernity foster ing a “culture of death.” Actually, it is possible to de tect something like a “theology of martyrdom” in the recent activities and writings of Pope John Paul II. His hope: that people will recognize the real ity of martyrdom today. In 1994 Pope John Paul II wrote an apostolic letter On the Coming of the Third Millen nium outlining his hopes for the celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000. He said that the Vatican would update the lists of mar tyrs (called “martyrologies”) “paying particular attention to the holiness of those who in our own time lived fully the truth of Christ.” We can see that the pope has emphasized this initiative. In the jubilee year he has be atified a number of martyrs coming from different times and places. In May he presides over a ceremony in Rome’s Col osseum honoring those who died for their faith in the 20th century. The 1994 papal letter explic itly noted that “the witness to Christ borne even to the shed ding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catho lics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants.” The pope also of the distant past. If we were to create stained-glass windows today with the symbols of martyrs, we would not use palm branches, or Catherine’s wheel, or Laurence’s gridiron; we would de pict electric prods, bullets in the back of the neck, gas chambers. There is also the sad fact that CNS illustration by Joan Hyme ■ ■ ■ In order to underscore the fact that holiness is found in all places and under quite dif ferent circumstances, the pope has beatified martyrs from very different places. Re cently in Rome, for example, he beatified martyrs who had suffered and died in the Phil ippines, in Brazil and Viet nam, as well as 10 religious sisters shot by the Nazis in 1943 in the Belarus. Within the past few years, the pope has beatified mar tyrs who suffered in Africa, Korea, Japan, China, Poland, Spain and many other parts of Europe and the Americas. By emphasizing the geo graphical diversity of martyr dom in the modern age, the local church’s vigor also is un derscored. The places where martyrs suffered were spe cific, and the circumstances under which they died were different. At the .same time, all mar tyrs had something in com mon: a firm grasp of Gospel truth and the grace (martyr dom, after all, is a grace) to witness unto death. So the martyrs also testify to the universality of the Gospel. Finally, as the pope said in his 1994 letter, when we honor the martyrs we do so conscious of the fact that many who died in the name of Christ were not Roman Catholics. The communion of the saints “speaks louder than the things that divide us,” he wrote. Martyrdom, then, is a complex sign that reflects the imitation of Christ, the value of truth, the vigor of the local church, and the struggle against sin and evil. As such, martyrdom to day, as it was in the earliest centu ries, is the seed from which the church grows in vigor. (Cunningham is a theology profes sor at the University of Notre Dame.) 1 here is a distinction between “martyrdom” in a “broad” sense and in a “strict” sense, the Vatican Congregation for Sainthood Causes said in a January statement, called a “note” The congregation looked ahead to the May 7 papal celebration in Rome’s Colosseum of “the memory of the ‘new martyrs,”’ as well as to the many local-level celebrations that will take place at that time. To avoid ambiguity in these observances, the note said that those whose memory is recalled but whose deaths have “not yet been recognized by the church as true martyrdom must be called simply ‘witnesses of the faith.’” It emphasized that the observances in May of modern witnesses of faith are neither beatifications nor canonizations. Furthermore, it said, “such celebrations are reserved to those who really shed their blood for Christ and for the Gospel, and not for any other ideal, however lofty.” The note stressed that the observances offer an opportunity to reflect on “the universal vocation to holiness” and also can inspire the church’s people, remind them of their “baptismal commitment” and encourage them “to bear heroic witness.” 17 David Gibson, Editor, Faith Alive!