SPEAKER_00: As we approach the end of the liturgical year, the church asks us to focus our attention on the end times.
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't let us drift quietly into the holidays.
SPEAKER_00: She confronts us with questions about eternity, the resurrection of the dead, the life of the world to come.
SPEAKER_00: And it can at some times be uncomfortable, even unsettling.
SPEAKER_00: The readings turn apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_00: The language sharpens.
SPEAKER_00: There's talk of destruction, of suffering, of final judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It's a kind of language that can make us uneasy.
SPEAKER_00: But underneath it all, the message is clear.
SPEAKER_00: And it's always the same message.
SPEAKER_00: Remain faithful to Christ no matter what you have to do, and you will share in his victory.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds simple until you try to live it faithfully every day.
SPEAKER_00: Because today Jesus is brutally honest with his followers.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them what will come.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Persecution, betrayal, hatred, even death.
SPEAKER_00: He looks them right in the eye and says, You will be seized and persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: You will be handed over to synagogues and prisons.
SPEAKER_00: You will be hated because of my name.
SPEAKER_00: No wonder our first instinct many times is to think, that's not what I signed up for.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus gives them a promise, a promise that should anchor every age of faith.
SPEAKER_00: By your perseverance, you will secure your lives.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, stay faithful, and you will share in my victory over sin and death.
SPEAKER_00: For two thousand plus years, men and women have heard those words and have clung to that promise, believed in that promise, and it has turned out to be a lifeline for them.
SPEAKER_00: And they have been mocked, they have been in prison, tortured, and killed, and yet they persevered.
SPEAKER_00: We call those people martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: Their stories are the church's heartbeat.
SPEAKER_00: Their witness reminds us that Christianity was not built by comfort, but by courage.
SPEAKER_00: In 1597 in Nagasaki, Japan, twenty six Christians were marched to their death.
SPEAKER_00: Among them was a young seminarian, Paul Mickey, brilliant, eloquent, full of zeal for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity had spread quickly through Japan, and that success provoked fear.
SPEAKER_00: The authorities demanded that believers publicly renounce the faith to prove their loyalty to them, and so they were forcing them to stomp on the crucifix.
SPEAKER_00: Some did.
SPEAKER_00: Many refused.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Mickey refused.
SPEAKER_00: He and his companions were arrested in Koyoto and marched six hundred miles barefoot through the winter cold.
SPEAKER_00: And when they arrived in Nagasaki, they were nailed to crosses facing the rising sun.
SPEAKER_00: The authorities thought that they would silence Christianity by this horrific spectacle.
SPEAKER_00: But what they unleashed was a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: As the executioners prepared their weapons, the martyrs began to sing.
SPEAKER_00: They sang psalms, they prayed out loud, their faces shone with joy.
SPEAKER_00: They forgave their persecutors.
SPEAKER_00: They called out to the crowd, urging the crowd to repent and to believe and to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul Mickey, nailed to the cross, preached was probably the finest sermon ever heard from a pulpit made out of wood and blood.
SPEAKER_00: He said, At this supreme moment of my life, I do not wish to deceive you.
SPEAKER_00: My religion teaches me to pardon my enemies, and I do so gladly.
SPEAKER_00: And I pardon the emperor and all who have sought my death.
SPEAKER_00: I beg them to seek baptism and to become Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Then, as he died, they sang twenty-six men praising God.
SPEAKER_00: Those songs echoed through the hills of Nagasaki.
SPEAKER_00: And centuries later, the church canonized them not because of how they died, but because how they lived, how they persevered in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you the most astonishing part of this all.
SPEAKER_00: The priests were killed and banished.
SPEAKER_00: There were no more priests in Japan.
SPEAKER_00: The churches were destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: The faith was outlawed for a century.
SPEAKER_00: But when the Christians returned some five hundred years later, they found Christians in Japan.
SPEAKER_00: Hidden Christians, writing prayers, teaching others about the faith, baptizing each other in private.
SPEAKER_00: But they kept the faith alive.
SPEAKER_00: They persevered.
SPEAKER_00: Their story is not unique.
SPEAKER_00: Every century has its Paul Mickey.
SPEAKER_00: Every nation has its martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel has always been a threat to the world because it demands something, no empire, no ideology, no ego can tolerate.
SPEAKER_00: Our religion demands conversion.
SPEAKER_00: Paganism and superstition are easy.
SPEAKER_00: They don't demand anything.
SPEAKER_00: They don't demand of you to change, no repentance, no personal cost.
SPEAKER_00: But Christianity begins and ends with a person, and that person is Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that Christ is the one that looks us in the eyes and says, Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And following him means we need to change.
SPEAKER_00: It means we need to surrender, to do away with those things that distract us and take away take us away from the faith, to do and leave behind whatever keeps us from love.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the world resists him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because deep down we all fear the cost of conversion.
SPEAKER_00: We want it our way, on our terms, to be able to control every aspect of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We may not face imprisonment or execution, but if each one of us face our own kind of trials.
SPEAKER_00: In our homes, in our workplace, in our universities, our culture, there are countless little ways we are asked to compromise our faith, to stay silent, to step away.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not stomping on a crucifix, but it's staying quiet when we should speak.
SPEAKER_00: It's choosing convenience over conviction.
SPEAKER_00: It's being tempted to live a faith that costs nothing, demands nothing, risks nothing.
SPEAKER_00: I want a faith that's comfortable on my terms.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus didn't call us to be comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to be courageous.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't call us to be just to survive and to just die one day.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to be witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: So the question for us today is very simple.
SPEAKER_00: Do we believe these words?
SPEAKER_00: You have to ask yourself honestly, do I believe in the promises of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Because if we do, then it demands of us responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: The martyrs believed.
SPEAKER_00: They believed that eternity was worth everything pain, death.
SPEAKER_00: They knew that death was not the end but the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: So, no, we don't need to pray that we will share the martyrs' faith, but we do need to pray that we share their faith.
SPEAKER_00: We must ask for courage to stand firm when the world demands of us to kneel to something else.
SPEAKER_00: We must ask for the grace to love when it would be easier to hate and to divide.
SPEAKER_00: Because every time a Christian chooses fidelity over fear, heaven gains ground.
SPEAKER_00: Every time a believer remains steadfast and perseveres in truth, the kingdom of God breaks through.
SPEAKER_00: So, my brothers and sisters, by your perseverance you will secure your lives.
SPEAKER_00: That's a promise.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the same words that Christ steadied Paul Mickey on the cross, who kept the hidden Christians of Japan faithful for centuries, who now comes to us in the Eucharist with the same strength, the same fire.
SPEAKER_00: If they could sing on crosses, nailed to crosses, we can stand firm in a cur in a culture that pushes us to compromise.
SPEAKER_00: If they could forgive their executioners, we can forgive people who have wounded us.
SPEAKER_00: If they could whisper, I belong to Christ, with their last breath, we can live all of our lives praising Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So allow their witness to awaken a faith in you that is unshakable, a hope that is stubborn, a love that is courageous.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we need to be witnesses to the world.
SPEAKER_00: And when we do, we will persevere in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: St.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Mickey and all holy martyrs of Christ pray for us.