Homily on the martyrdom of the Maccabees and the virtue of Fortitude, given for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time at St Bernadette's and St Patrick's Churches, Jersey. Readings: 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 and Luke 20:27-38.
Some of my friends work in professions which are at the forefront of the dramatic social changes we’re seeing today, the medical and teaching professions especially. My friends went into these professions out of a genuine desire to help, to inspire young people to do their best and love knowledge, to help heal the sick or care for the dying, to help people (especially young people) struggling with mental health issues. More and more, they are coming to me and saying the same thing; I am being asked to say things or do things which conflict with my Catholic Faith. They feel compromised, forced either to lose their careers or to do or say things they know to be morally wrong.
When changes in their professions were first made, promises were made that those with moral objections wouldn’t be forced to participate. Yet, as the years go on and attitudes change, more and more their participation is becoming or has become mandatory, and objectors risk losing their jobs. Now they are told, they still have the right to refuse, but that refusal doesn’t come without consequences. There is a kind of soft persecution, slowly but surely pushing Catholics out of public life if they want to follow their consciences as the Church has informed them.
In today’s first Reading from the second book of Maccabees, we come across a different, particularly violent, form of persecution: the story of the seven brothers. The books of Maccabees are set during the occupation of Israel by a Greek King, named Antiochus Epiphanes. Earlier on in 2 Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes had sacked the Temple in Jerusalem, desecrated it, stolen its goods, and forced the Jewish people to adopt pagan Greek practices.
But, in Chapters six and seven, Antiochus goes further; he orders that the Temple in Jerusalem be made into a Temple of Zeus, he brings in Greek religious practices, making sacrifices to pagan gods and sacrificing unclean meats as well as other immoral behaviours. He orders that Jews be forced to participate. Some Jews do so willingly, others do not and are killed.
Immediately before today’s reading, a Jewish teacher of the Law named Eleazar, is offered a choice; he can either pretend to eat pork or be beaten to death. He refuses to even pretend, saying to his captors;
Many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretence, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age.
2 Maccabees 6:24-25
Eleazar is killed for his refusal, and immediately after we see the consequences; seven of these young men for whom he was so concerned followed his example, and one by one they died refusing to defile themselves by breaking the Jewish Law.
Eleazar and the Seven brothers demonstrate one of the four Cardinal Virtues, the virtue of Fortitude. The Virtue of Fortitude is
Firmness… in bearing and withstanding those things where it is most difficult to be firm.
St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia-IIae, q.123, a.2, Res.
This virtue is most often used to describe those who are Martyred; they held firm to Faith and Justice and faced death without fear. However, this virtue of Fortitude, which the Martyrs show us in the extreme, is also required for all Christian virtue; it is hard to be a Christian. It is hard to love God in a world that rejects Him. It is hard to love our neighbour in a selfish world, or in a world that badly misunderstands what love is.
Today, the world mistakes love for enabling, or affirmation; for agreeing with and affirming every life choice, every decision, every self-perception, without challenge. Love is none of these things, love means truly desiring the best for the people we love, above all it means desiring their salvation. When those around us put themselves in grave moral danger, when they ask us to affirm them in it, or worse to participate in it, we are faced with fundamentally the same decision as Eleazar and the Seven Brothers in 2 Maccabees; do we eat the pork or do we refuse and face the consequences?
We are unlikely to be martyred for our choices, but as the years go on and the world becomes more hostile to the teachings of the Church, especially on moral questions, we are likely to face harsher and harsher consequences. It brings me back to those friends of ours, even those among us, facing impossible choices; they might be ostracised by friends and family, they might be dismissed from their jobs, they might even be arrested. While we must be prudent, while we must be delicate, while we must always share the truth in love, we also have to follow the example of the Martyrs; we have to be firm in our moral convictions.
In this age, though we are (as I say) unlikely to be truly Martyred, we might be called to join the ranks of the Holy Confessors; the men and women who suffered for the faith. This will be difficult, but we are made two powerful promises in today's readings. The first, in the second reading from St Paul to the Thessalonians; God will be with us. He will ‘comfort and strengthen us in all we do and say.’ He will ‘give us strength and guard us from the evil one’ who would tempt us away from the truth; we need only ask, we need only pray, for the graces of Fortitude and Perseverance, and He will be with us.
The second promise we have, from today’s Gospel and indeed from all our readings, is the promise of the Resurrection. Jesus tells us that God
is God, not of the dead, but of the living
Luke 20:38
echoing and affirming the hope of the brothers in our first reading;
the King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again for ever.
2 Maccabees 7:9
If we hold firm, we are promised a glorious new life in heaven.
All of this comes with a caveat, an important qualification. In the time of the Maccabees there were many Jews who did eat pork and participate in the pagan rituals. In our own time there are a great many Catholics who have found themselves in morally compromised positions. Jesus does not condemn these, and neither does the Church, we don’t have a zero-tolerance policy for sin or a three-strikes-and-you’re out rule. The Church constantly calls us back when we stray and offers us forgiveness and mercy. It is our duty especially to pray for those who have lost their way, and to let them know how much God loves them, and how badly He wants to forgive them and welcome them back into the company of his children.
Today, then, we are asked to pray; we pray for those who suffer for the faith, that the Lord grant them perseverance and the strength to carry on, and for those who feel compromised, that the Lord give them the grace of fortitude to hold firm in the Faith.
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