Martyrdom is Eucharistic

The Christian life is a lifetime of grace.  It attracts us past the boundaries of our human nature and into the supernatural by sharing in God’s Trinitarian life.  The solely approach for us to realize such a life is by God’s assist, via His grace.  On their very own, our efforts are ineffective.  We can not overcome sin with out God’s grace; we can not obtain salvation with out God’s grace.  If grace is so essential, how will we get it? 

God’s grace involves us via Christ, who merited it for us.  By His sacrifice on the Cross, Christ glad for our sins and merited infinite grace which He can bestow on us individually once we are united to Him, once we develop into members of His Body by coming into the Church via Baptism. 

This leads us to the sacraments.  The seven sacraments which Christ instituted are instruments by which He bestows the consequences of His ardour.  In different phrases, they’re the actual ways in which Christ provides His grace to us.  Thus, the sacraments are the concrete ways in which we take part in Christ’s life and His sacrifice on the cross. 

Baptism, since it’s the sacrament which initially unites us to Christ and makes us members of His Body the Church, is essentially the most essential sacrament.  Yet it’s the Eucharist, the exact same sacrifice on the cross, re-presented in an unbloody method, which merited salvation and charm for us, that’s the best sacrament.  The Eucharist has a secondary primacy to it as properly: we are able to obtain it typically.  We are obliged to take part within the Mass not less than weekly, however we are able to achieve this even day by day (not simply as soon as in our lifetime, as with Baptism). 

Attending Mass just isn’t like attending a live performance or a lecture.  At Mass, we aren’t mere spectators.  Instead, we take part within the sacrifice which is obtainable. 

We do that in two methods.  First, we give our consent to the sacrifice of Christ.  Like Mary standing on the foot of the cross, we must always consent to Christ’s self-gift to the Father.  Mary stood on Calvary and permitted of what her Son was doing.  We kneel at church and do the identical—the exact second we give our consent is on the “Great Amen.”  At that second, the priest holds up the Body and Blood of Christ and presents them to God, praying, “Through Him, with Him, and in Him, O God almighty Father, within the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is Yours, ceaselessly and ever.”  We reply “Amen” to offer our approval of glorifying God by Christ’s one sacrifice re-presented through the Mass.  The “Him” that we pray via, with, and in is Christ.

The second approach we take part within the sacrifice of the Mass is by uniting ourselves to Christ in His self-offering to God.  We don’t merely approve of Christ providing Himself to God, however we unite ourselves to Christ’s sacrifice.  We be part of our personal selves, our lives, all the nice issues we do and the evil issues we endure to the sacrifice of the Cross and so supply them to God via, with, and in Christ.  This additionally happens in the mean time of the “Great Amen.” 

At this level an enormous query arises.  Why did Christ institute the sacraments?  Meaning, why should we obtain grace via the sacraments and never merely in non-public prayer?  Why should we consent to Christ’s sacrifice and unite ourselves to it ritually on the Mass as an alternative of at residence once we learn the Bible?  Wouldn’t which have been easier?  Why hassle with these ceremonies and liturgies? 

The easy, and fairly crass, reply is that it’s as a result of we’re animals.  Now, we aren’t merely animals, however we’re animals—rational animals.  We have our bodies.  We are usually not solely spirit, like angels. 

Our our bodies are important to our humanity.  Because of our bodily nature, we study via our senses.  Further, we specific ourselves bodily—it is a central a part of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, that “the physique reveals the particular person.”  Thus, it’s pure for people to make use of ritual and ceremony, using the tangible to precise the nontangible.  Thus, once we worship God, we should do it ritually, liturgically, whereby bodily indicators specific non secular realities happening. 

Another instance of the concept that since we’re bodily creatures we should have ceremonies is up to date secular “marriage.”  Even in a society that permits divorce at any level for any purpose (a society that doesn’t worth marriage or take it significantly), individuals nonetheless have extraordinarily luxurious ceremonies to get married.  These shows immediately point out the importance of formality in human society, even other than sacramental liturgy.

So, once we take part within the Mass, we’re liturgically taking part in Christ’s demise on Calvary by consenting to His sacrifice and uniting ourselves to it. 

Martyrdom is a way more literal union with Christ’s sacrifice.  While we at Mass don’t die once we unite ourselves to Christ, the martyrs truly do die for Christ and with Christ.  Their participation with His sacrifice is way more visceral.  Thus, Christians have at all times acknowledged that martyrs enter instantly into heaven. (Purgatory just isn’t essential for them.) 

Furthermore, the Church has at all times held that the martyrs advantage grace for us.  Their deaths, just like the sacrificial demise of Christ, are usually not merely meritorious for themselves however for us as properly, that means that we profit spiritually from the sacrifice of the martyrs.

Martyrdom is Eucharistic in a number of senses.  First, it’s a nice participation within the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, just like the Mass. 

Second, Vatican II eloquently teaches us that the Mass is the supply and summit of the Christian life.  It is the supply since we get the grace to dwell properly from it, and it’s the summit in that, as we’ve got seen, it’s on the Mass that we unite our entire lives to Christ.  Martyrdom has an analogous operate throughout the Church.  As we’ve talked about, the sacrifice of martyrs advantages the entire Church with the grace merited by it (thereby serving as a “supply” of grace).  Additionally, the martyrs unite themselves wholly to Christ in physique and soul once they make their paramount sacrifice (attaining the “summit” of union with Our Lord).  The martyrs are thus seen as particularly nice saints throughout the heavenly ranks.

The earliest saints had been the martyrs.  It took a number of hundred years earlier than the Church acknowledged any saint moreover a martyr (and St. John the Apostle).  To today, martyrdom by itself is ample to get one beatified.  Further, the martyrs drive the Church ahead, as the traditional maxim goes, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  The Pope used to put on pink sneakers, partially to suggest the blood of the martyrs on which the Church flourished.  

Third, there isn’t any higher love than to put down one’s life.  Since we’re embodied creatures, the best present we are able to make to a different is our very life.  Dying for somebody is the best single act of affection we are able to make.  Yet only a few of us truly get to die for our family members.  Instead, we dedicate our lives to their good and specific this ritually (in weddings, the Mass, and many others.).  The martyrs really lay down their lives.  They get to precise bodily their love for God immediately. 

Fourth, the Eucharist prepares us for martyrdom.  To be a martyr requires nice holiness and a zeal to offer one’s life completely to and for God.  The Eucharist is the principle approach by which we develop in holiness, in charity, and get to routinely supply ourselves and our entire lives to God, for His glory and never ours.  Thus, one of the best ways to organize to be martyred just isn’t via train and navy coaching in enduring torture, however fairly to take part devoutly at Mass. 

In a world the place martyrdom just isn’t reducing however growing, and common persecution towards Christianity is rising within the Western world, we should put together ourselves for martyrdom because the early Christians did.  One of the indicators that the Church in America just isn’t ready to face persecution is that so many individuals don’t consider within the Eucharist or don’t worth it correctly. 

Let us look to the martyrs, particularly those that died for the sake of the Mass and the Eucharist, to strengthen our religion in and devotion to the best sacrament.

Author’s Note: This article was impressed by Fr. Francis Sofie’s guide, Martyrs of the Eucharist, obtainable from Tan Books. This guide does the Church a fantastic service by telling the tales of saints who had been martyred for the sake of the Mass and the Eucharist.  This reveals us that, as nice and noble as martyrdom is, the Eucharist is even higher—it’s what many martyrs died for. 

Thirion, E. (nineteenth century). Triumph of Faith: Christian Martyrs within the Time of Nero [painting]. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.