The Beatitudes – The Meek

 

 

THE BEATITUDES – THE MEEK

While the Israelites conquered Canaan by waging war against its inhabitants, in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus declares—paradoxically—that his Jewish listeners will inherit the same land through meekness.

Meekness has been defined as “self-possession in the face of adversity”—a definition I consider felicitous. See:

https://catholiceducation.org/en/culture/the-virtue-of-meekness.html   

—Donald DeMarco, “The Virtue of Meekness,” Catholic Education Resource Center, reprinted from Lay Witness (May 1999) with permission

The land Jesus invokes in the Sermon on the Mount is a metaphor. It stands for the eternal reward of those who practice the virtue of meekness.

Some of the greatest examples of the virtue of meekness are the witness of the martyrs. In the face of a painful and sometimes brutal death, they forgive their murderers and win the crown of life.

In the witness of the martyrs, the Church has been blessed with some of the world’s most remarkable testaments to human courage and magnanimity of spirit.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity is an original account from the hand of Perpetua, a noblewoman who was martyred with her companion in prison, Felicity, a slave, in Carthage, North Africa, a province of the Roman Empire, in 203 C.E. The account, which survives to the present time in Latin and Greek, is bookended by an unnamed editor who witnessed the event in the arena.

Among other reasons, the account is notable for its uncommon firsthand personal narrative of martyrdom; Perpetua’s story of her faith-filled resistance against the fierce remonstrations of her father; her description of visionary dreams, including one about the suffering and liberation of her brother Dinocrates in the afterlife, who had died from cancer at the age of seven, and another of her following fellow martyr Saturus up a dangerous ladder hanging with weapons into a heavenly garden; the pathos of Felicity’s giving birth to her daughter in prison; and finally, the fearsome spectacle itself, involving public scourging, and mauling by wild beasts. Perpetua and Felicity are thrown by a wild cow before they are beheaded by the sword.

Perpetua tells of her dream the night before her execution in which she is led out from the prison and into the arena.

“I gazed upon an immense assembly in astonishment. And because I knew that I was given to the wild beasts, I marvelled that the wild beasts were not let loose upon me. Then there came forth against me a certain Egyptian, horrible in appearance, with his backers, to fight with me. And there came to me, as my helpers and encouragers, handsome youths; and I was stripped, and became a man. Then my helpers began to rub me with oil, as is the custom for contest; and I beheld that Egyptian on the other hand rolling in the dust. And a certain man came forth, of wondrous height, so that he even over-topped the top of the amphitheatre; and he wore a loose tunic and a purple robe between two bands over the middle of the breast; and he had on calliculæ of varied form, made of gold and silver; and he carried a rod, as if he were a trainer of gladiators, and a green branch upon which were apples of gold. And he called for silence, and said, ‘This Egyptian, if he should overcome this woman, shall kill her with the sword; and if she shall conquer him, she shall receive this branch.’ Then he departed.”

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0324.htm

—“The Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity,” The Catholic Encyclopedia

Saints Paul Miki and Companions

Evangelization under Roman Catholicism began in Japan with the arrival of Saint Francis Xavier and the Jesuits in July 1549. Although the rulers of Japan originally considered Christianity and the missionaries spreading the faith as a useful check on the power of the Buddhist monasteries, the powers at the time were guarded because they knew that Roman Catholic Spain had used conversion to the faith as an instrument of conquest in the Philippines. By the time Toyotomo Hideyoshi had become shōgun in 1587, over 100,000 Japanese had converted to Christianity. He considered them a threat to national unity, and Christians were persecuted, suppressed, and martyred in the hundreds. Only under the Meiji Restoration in 1871, was the practice of Christianity, together with the exercise of freedom of religion, legally allowed in Japan.    

Currently, the Roman Catholic Church through official beatification or canonization recognizes five sets of martyrs totalling 437 individuals. The first group, twenty-six martyrs is the most renowned. Their memorial is celebrated in the Church on February 6. In Japan the Twenty-Six Martyrs Museum and Monument was built in 1962 on Nishizaka Hill, Nagasaki, on the site of their martyrdom, which is designated a Japanese National Sanctuary.

In 1587 six missionaries and 18 Japanese Christians were rounded up in Kyoto and Osaka and marched to Nagasaki, a distance of 800 km, a journey of 27 days. In Kyoto, the left earlobes of the condemned were clipped off. On the way to Nagasaki, two Christians were forcibly accosted by the guards to join the party.

When the martyrs arrived at Nishizaka Hill, they were presented with their own individual crosses, to which they were lashed. Either side of each cross stood an executioner armed with a spear, and upon the signal, each pair thrust their spear into the heart of the martyr, working from either end of the row of crosses to the center. As the martyrs’ heads dropped forward sharply in death, devout spectators bravely rushed forward to collect their blood on pieces of cloth that today are preserved in the Nishizaka Hill museum.

Best known among the twenty-six martyrs is Paul Miki, a Jesuit brother who preached and wrote letters all along his final journey.

Hanging on his personal cross, Brother Paul preached to the crowd.

“The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die. I know you believe me, and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.”

Text is from this source:

https://www.jesuitseastois.org/jesuit-lectionary-january-june/sts-miki-soan-kisai

—Father George Bur, S.J., “February 6: Sts. Paul Miki, John Soan, James Kisai, Religious, and their Companions (Martyrs): Reflection on Today’s Feast,” Office of Ignatian Spirituality

Compare with the text in Jesuit Father Luís Fróis’ 1597 account:

https://nowthatimcatholic.com/2020/02/06/saint-paul-miki/

—Charles Johnston, “Saint Paul Miki,” Now That I’m Catholic

The Martyrs of Tibhirine

On May 31, 1996, the government of Algeria announced that they had found along a road near Medea the heads of seven monks of the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of Atlas, Tibhirine, Algeria. The decapitated bodies were never recovered. The monks had been kidnapped from their monastery by the Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé, GIA) during the night of March 26, 1996 and into the following day, and on May 23 the GIA announced in a communiqué their execution two days earlier. It was a gruesome end to their heroic Christian witness.

The monks were victims of the Algerian Civil War, which was fought from January 11, 1992 to February 8, 2002, between the government of Algeria and various Islamist rebel groups, which included the GIA. Total death estimates from the conflict reach as high as 200,000.

The Islamists had targeted foreigners and journalists. Although the monks at Tibhirine abbey had been warned by the government that they should leave the area—they could be caught in the crossfire—the monks decided to stay.

They had originally come to Algeria—the Trappist foundation in Algeria dates to 1938—to live in friendship with the Muslims and to witness by their Christian presence. The Muslims who lived and worked in the environs of the abbey testified that since before the war, the local community had lived in peace and dialogue with the monks.

It was claimed that the intention of GIA had been to kidnap the monks and trade them for rebels held captive by the government. However, allegations remain that the Algerian army had been involved in the murder of the monks. Allegedly, the army had unintentionally killed the monks in a raid on a rebel camp and then planted their decapitated heads on the road in order to gather support from France for the government’s side in the war. It’s possible that the army’s secret service had even enlisted the rebels to kidnap the monks.

Two monks who had eluded the abduction survived and later relocated to a Trappist community in Morocco.

Father Christian de Chergé is probably the most poignant witness among the seven. Christian first arrived in Algeria in 1959 as a French soldier. He developed a close friendship with Mohammed, a policeman who was murdered by soldiers of the Algerian army for protecting Christian when he was threatened by them.

Christian studied for the priesthood after leaving Algeria, and in 1969 he joined the Trappists, moving to Tibhirine abbey in 1971.

In a letter dated January 1, 1994—nearly two-and-a-half years before his martyrdom—Father Christian wrote a letter to his family to be opened upon his death. It appears that at that point in time the monks of Tibhirine abbey were being pressured to leave and that Father Christian composed the letter in premonition of his sacrifice.

The letter, published in L’Osservatore Romano (June 1, 1996), is a masterpiece of elegy. It is excerpted here.

“If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of the terrorism that now seems to encompass all the foreigners living in Algeria, I would like my community, my church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to Algeria; and that they accept that the sole Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure.

“I would like, when the time comes, to have a space of clearness that would allow me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who will strike me down.

“I could not desire such a death; it seems to me important to state this: How could I rejoice if the Algerian people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder?

“My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naïve or idealistic: ‘Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!’ But they should know that…for this life lost, I give thanks to God. In this ‘thank you,’ which is said for everything in my life from now on, I certainly include you, my last-minute friend who will not have known what you are doing…I commend you to the God in whose face I see yours. And may we find each other, happy ‘good thieves’ in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both.”

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/life/grieving/christian-de-cherge-a-story-of-forgiveness

—Johann Christoph Arnold, “Christian de Chergé: A Story of Forgiveness, Plough (January 10, 2015)

The martyrs remained steadfast because they were strong with God’s strength. Through their prayers for us we obtain the grace to endure the little martyrdom of our own ordinary lives.