| Ineradicable faith |
|---|
How
can I find the words to praise you, most courageous brethren? How can I
compose a speech worthy of the strength of your heart and your
perseverance in faith? You endured questioning by the cruelest tortures
right through to the glorious end. You did not yield to suffering, but
the sufferings yielded to you. The tortures did not bring the end of
your torment, but the crown of martyrdom did. The intensification of the
tortures went on and on, not to break down the steadfast faith but to
send the men of God the sooner to their Lord.
The crowds who were present wondered as they saw the
heavenly battle of God, Christ’s spiritual battle, as they saw his
servants standing with free voices and undamaged minds, strong with
divine strength. They were deprived, it is true, of the weapons of this
world, but they were armed with the arms of faith. Tortured they stood,
yet stronger than their torturers. Their limbs, beaten and torn as they
were, still defeated the instruments that had beaten and torn them.
The cruellest beatings, repeatedly administered, could
not overcome their ineradicable faith, even when their very entrails
were torn open and at length the servants of God had no limbs left to be
beaten, but only wounds. Blood was flowing that might quench the flames
of persecution, that might subdue the fires of Gehenna itself. What a
spectacle that was for the Lord – how sublime, how great, how acceptable
to the eyes of God because it showed the allegiance and devotion of his
soldiers! As the Psalms say, when the Holy Spirit speaks to us and
warns us: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful.
Precious is the death that has bought immortality at the cost of its
blood and received the crown of God as the consummation of its virtues!
How Christ rejoiced! How willingly he fought and
conquered in such servants, protecting their faith and giving to the
believers all that they needed! He was present at his own battle, he
lifted up his champions, the proclaimers of his name, he gave them
strength and new spirit. And he who once conquered death for us still
and always conquers it within us.
O happy Church of ours, lit up by the honor of God’s
kindness, now purified by the blood of our glorious martyrs! Once she
shone white through the works of the brethren; now she has become purple
with the blood of the martyrs. Among her flowers there bloom both white
lilies and red roses.
Now let each of us strive for the highest of one of
these honors. Let each of us be crowned either with the white crown of
labours or the purple crown of suffering.
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