|
|
|
Preparing for Martyrdom
History presents us with countless times and places where pagans or atheists murdered Christians for the faith. For Catholicism, this is martyrdom: not to kill others for the faith, but to be killed for faith in Jesus Christ. What would happen if the perpetrators of martyrdoms were later to be other Catholics themselves? A fascinating hypothesis. I found in Touchstone Magazine, April 2006, the following excerpt of a prayer of St. Thomas More (1478-1535) before his execution. Oh, by the way: Every Bishop of England should have been up there on the block with him, yet there was only one. - O Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, three equal and coeternal persons, and one almighty God, have mercy on me, vile, abject, abominable, sinful wretch, meekly knowledging before thine high majesty my long-continued sinful life, even from my very childhood hitherto… Now, good gracious Lord, as thou givest me thy grace to knowledge [my sins], so give me Thy grace, not in only word but in heart also, with very sorrowful contrition to repent them and utterly to forsake them. And forgive me those sins also, in which by mine own default, through evil affections and evil custom, my reason is with sensuality so blinded that I cannot discern them for sin. And illumine, good Lord, mine heart, and give me thy grace to know them, and forgive me my sins negligently forgotten, and bring them to my mind with grace to be purely confessed of them. Glorious God, give me from henceforth the grace, with little respect unto the world, so to set and fix firmly mine heart upon thee that I may say with they blessed apostle St. Paul, The world is crucified to me and I to the world. To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ. Give me the grace to amend my life and to have an eye to mine end without grudge of death, which to them that die in thee, good Lord, is the gate of a wealthy life. Almighty God, Teach me to do thy will. Make me to run after thee to the odor of they ointments. Take thou my right hand and lead me in the right path because of my enemies. Draw me after thee. With bit and bridle bind fast my jaws when I do not draw near to thee. O glorious God, all sinful fear, all sinful sorrow and pensiveness, all sinful hope, all sinful mirth and gladness take from me. And on the other side, concerning such fear, such sorrow, such heaviness, such comfort, consolation and gladness as shall be profitable for my soul: Deal with me according to they great goodness, O Lord. Good Lord, give me the grace, in all my fear and agony, to have recourse to that great fear and wonderful agony that thou, my sweet Savior, hadst at the Mount of Olivet before thy most bitter passion, and in the meditation thereof to conceive ghostly comfort and consolation profitable for my soul. Almighty God, take form me all vainglorious minds, all appetites of mine own praise, all envy, covetise, gluttony, sloth and lechery, all wrathful affections, all appetite of revenging, all desire or delight of other folks’ harm, all pleasure in provoking any person to wrath and anger, all delight of exprobration or insultation against any person in their affliction and calamity. And give me, good Lord, an humble, lowly, quiet, peaceable, patient, charitable, kind, tender and pitiful mind, with all my works, and all my words, and all my thoughts to have a taste of they Holy Blessed Spirit. Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent Charity, a love to thee, good Lord, incomparable above the love to myself, and that I love nothing to thy displeasure, but everything in an order to thee. Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with thee, not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wretched world, nor so much for the avoiding of the pains of purgatory, nor of the pains of hell neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of heaven, in respect of mine own commodity, as even for a very love to thee… Let thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have hoped in thee. In thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me not be confounded forever. - Shortly after writing this prayer, St. Thomas More was beheaded for is unconditional loyalty to the successor of Peter. (Copied from Touchstone, April 2006, p. 38. Some spelling is from Thomas’ older English. Other errors are perhaps my own typographical errors.) |