We usually think of martyrdom as occurring because the martyr refused to renounce faith in Christ, and this has often been the case in history. But St. Bede the Venerable, in this morning's office of readings, gives a different view, in his commentary on St. John the Baptist:
His persecutor had demanded not that he should deny Christ, but only that he should keep silent about the truth.
Only that he should keep silent about the truth. Is that not what we are being asked to do today, in the public square? Keep silent?
Silence about the truth is death, spiritual death, the death of the soul, a creeping, invisible death in which those who are living in darkness, in the death of sin, are kept in darkness and sin, and so dead to the truth, dead to Life. And death takes root, and spreads, when truth is silenced.
How are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!” Rom 10:14-15
In silence is death. But in death incurred for the sake of Christ, be it death of honor, death of reputation, death even of physical life, is Life itself. In such death, we live forever.
Bede concludes of John,
Such was the quality and strength of the man who accepted the end of this present life by shedding his blood after the long imprisonment.
Such is the quality and strength of men and women in our country today who are not silent, but suffer the loss of jobs, reputation, and honor in the public square for speaking the truth. Such is the quality and strength of men and women in countries not so far from our own who suffer loss of freedom, imprisonment and jail, and, in some places, death, for speaking the truth: the truth of Christ.
If it comes to you or I, will we have the quality and strength to speak the truth of Christ in the face of loss of reputation or jobs, or of imprisonment, or even death? Will I? Or will we speak – and count it all joy when we are persecuted for the sake of the truth – for the sake of Christ?
Thank you, Lord, for the beautiful witness of St. John the Baptist, whose feast we celebrate today. May we learn from, and imitate, his witness.
St. John the Baptist, please pray for us.
