Trust God in our Fears
Friends in Christ, Today the first reading is from the Book of Job. Job has many problems: tragedy, sickness – and he has been trying to figure out why God allows such things to happen to him. At one point he really comes to some wisdom. He says that God is all powerful; God makes mountains tremble – he causes earthquakes which make even huge buildings shake or collapse; God commands the sun to rise and to set, and he commands the stars. It is God who made the constellations in the heavens, and who does such marvelous things which cannot be fathomed. And if God is so great as to do all this, and much more, who am I to say to God, ‘What are you doing?’ Who am I to question God’s plan?
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Job, like us in our own life, wrestles with the question of why does God allow pain, suffering, incomprehensible things to happen? The Book of Job asks, ‘Why does God allow suffering?’ He wrote this so long before Jesus would come; before Christ would stretch out his arms in love, suffering with us, and for us.
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God came into our world in Jesus, not to take away suffering, but to enter into it, to make it salvific, to give it meaning. Job did not know that when we suffer, God is suffering with us. When sadness fills us, Jesus feels exactly what we feel – with us. Job did not know this. But his insight, his wisdom, is good. God has done such incredible marvels, just look at creation, he says. Look at the power and wonder of creation. We cannot make a planet, or even a butterfly, but for the Lord it is simple. God is clearly very great. Then can’t we trust him? How can we doubt him, or question his ways?
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A little boy needed some surgery, it was the only way to make him better. He was being taken down the hall on the gurney to surgery, and his father was walking along with him. The boy cried and cried, ‘Why daddy, why are you doing this to me?’ What can the father say? The child can’t understand. The father can only say: ‘Trust me.’ I love you, and so trust me.’
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This is what our Father-God says to us in our troubles, and pain, and problems: ‘I know you can’t understand. ‘ But just trust me.’ I am with you in this.
St. Matthew
Friends in Christ, Today is the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle. Matthew was a tax collector. Tax collectors were looked down upon because of their shady lives.
The meeting of Christ and Matthew is a most beautiful one, for we learn as much about Matthew, as we do about the heart of Christ. Fr. Goodier in his book, relates to us the scene of the gospel:
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One cool morning in Capernaum, Jesus and his disciples pass down a main street; past shops and venders. At the corner is a man seated at a low table with paper and a metal box with coins. This was the customs collector, the future St. Matthew. Matthew had his sins. He had not always been fair; his life had shadows of which he was not proud. Yet inside his heart, was a distant longing; a yearning to leave his sins and to be happy again. Deep down, he yearned to be a child again, and to be good. But alas, his destiny was to be what he is; it was his lot to live with sinners, these were the cards he was dealt in life.
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Yet that cool morning, writes Father Goodier, Matthew’s eye caught the distant approach of the Master, of whom he had heard. He recognized the men with him: he had dealt with them in business before. As he watched Jesus coming up the street, a desire rushed into his soul. For a moment, he wished that he could be where they were, with Christ; but this was not his lot in life.
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With thoughts like these running through his head, he turned his eyes back to his work. But what was this? Jesus came and stood at his counter. He didn’t dare look up. Jesus stood and waited, a touch of gentle humor lighting up his face. Matthew could endure it no longer; he raised his eyes and looked to those which were looking down at him. Jesus’ eyes caught his, and as with so many others before him, Matthew realized – that Jesus knew him.
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To see the eyes of God, is to see your Creator; it is to look into the eyes of the one who knows everything about you; and to know that you are loved. And there is no more wonderful sound in the world, than the words which Matthew heard that day: ‘Follow me.’
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Bursting with an unknown happiness, he immediately arose and followed him. The joy of that day never left St. Matthew, who spent his life serving his Master, even as a martyr.
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The Venerable Bede says, Our Lord spoke that day to Matthew by the invisible impulse of grace, and he still speaks to us in this same way, each day
Grace
18th Sunday after Pentecost
Friends in Christ, In the year 1604 in Belgium, there were two students who lived a life of sin. One night, in the midst of their evil ways, one of them, named Richard, decided to go home. As he was about to get in bed, he remembered that he had not said his usual 3 Hail Marys, as was his custom since his youth, and so he did – and went to sleep. He was suddenly awakened by a violent knocking, and through the closed door came his friend from that night, deformed and hideous, his body of flame.
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Who are you? Richard cried in terror, you seem to be like a devil. The unfortunate creature exclaimed, I am your friend, I am damned. I was killed last night in the street and my soul is in hell. You too were doomed, but your prayers preserved you. He then disappeared.
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Richard fell on the floor, thanked Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin, and vowed to change his life. Knowing that he had received a great grace, he acted – he became a missionary; he went to Mexico, and then studied in the Philippines in Cebu, where he was ordained a priest. In 1613 he went to Japan where Catholics were being martyred by Buddhists. On September 10, 1622, Richard was martyred in Nagasaki, Japan, tortured by slow burning in fire. A hero for the Faith, Richard of St. Anne, in 1867, was declared Blessed by the Church.
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A question for us to consider today is, in God’s plan, why was it that one of these men was damned, and the other became a great witness for Christ? The mystery of all of this is the mystery of grace and free-will. Today in the Epsitle, St. Paul says, ‘I give thanks to God always for you, for the grace of God that is given you in Jesus Christ. ‘By it, he says, in all things you are made rich in Him; nothing is wanting to you in any grace.
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Although many categories of grace exist, the two main types of grace are Actual grace and Sanctifying grace. Now Actual graces, are all those supernatural helps that we get from God. These can be promptings to do the right thing, sudden insights, or glimpses of God’s hand in our life. An Actual grace could be a sudden prompting with guilt for a sin, or an impulse moving us to confess. Anything that is a special intervention by God – and we often notice them – to bring us either away from sin or another step toward holiness. A priest hears about these often, because people will often notice God acting, in some specific way.
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The thing about grace however, is that it is a help, a gift, offered to us. Grace waits for our free will, and sometimes courage – to follow. God gives every person sufficient grace – sufficient opportunities – to be saved; but we must act on these graces. In the case of Richard’s friend, for sure God gave him opportunities in his life to follow grace, but he rejected them and became hardened in his sin, silencing his conscience.
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Blessed Richard himself, at least responded to grace sometimes; for example, he was given the thought, ‘I should say my prayers before bed.’ And it sounds as if he at least had not given that up. Now while God gives everyone sufficient grace to be saved, he pours untold graces on certain individuals. Once Richard began cooperating with God’s grace, look what the Lord did with him! – And this is the spiritual life; listening and responding to God’s invitations.
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In the gospel today, there is this sick man that Jesus not only healed, but forgave his sins – can there be a greater Actual grace, than to have the Son of God heal you and forgive you!? Yet some, in Christ’s day, by their hardness of heart, rejected grace.
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Actual graces can be external or internal. A person who is troubled, not knowing where to turn – is handed a book seemingly at random by a friend – he is changed. An external grace. A mother knows she must speak to her daughter about something difficult – and suddenly finds the words and courage to say it – an internal grace.
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Actual graces are one of the major types of grace; these are the helps to our spiritual growth, either internal or external. But the goal of all these helps from God is the other type of grace: Sanctifying grace. This grace is with the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit that makes us holy, that makes us pleasing to God. This is the grace we receive at conversion, at baptism, in the sacraments, in justification.
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But grace is not a fluid or a gas; if we think of Jesus, who unites in himself, God and Man, Divinity and Humanity – if we think of Christ, ‘Divinizing’ humanity, his Mystical Body – then Sanctifying grace is the divinization of man, it is making us like-to-God, uniting us with God through Jesus.
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We cannot have a union with God if we are not like God. A cat can have no ‘relationship’ with a plant. A woman cannot marry her dog or have a romantic relationship with an animal. For a human creature to have a relationship with God – well, this would normally be ridiculous, we are so very different from God! But sanctifying grace begins to divinize us, to make us like God, so that it is possible to enter an intimate union with Him.
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Sanctifying grace therefore, is nothing else than the divine life which flows from Christ into us. Father Emile Mersch says, that as the body is in the process of formation here on earth, it’s divinization is also in formation. Therefore it must include the power of formation and growth – analogous to Actual graces – and an initial level of life that must increase, analogous to sanctifying grace.
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As we are part of the Mystical Body of Christ, it is God’s will that divinization would flow from Christ to the whole body, that is ourselves. If we wish to grow in the likeness of Christ, we must therefore act on each Actual grace that is offered to us.
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Mary is called the universal channel of grace. St. Peter Damien calls her ‘the Treasurer of divine graces.’ Let us then invoke this Mother often. We can pray 3 Hail Mary’s before bed, or call on her anytime, to obtain every heavenly help and grace from Christ her Son.
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[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton]
Love God with all your heart
17th Sunday after Pentecost
Friends in Christ, for 20 centuries, saints and mystics and poets, have puzzled over what happened in the mind of Judas. After Judas betrayed Christ, he gave back the money and hanged himself. But this is not the behavior of an ordinary greedy man. The typical miser loves nothing but money, and would have never even thought of giving back the money, much less of ending his life.
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Judas was greedy, but he was something else besides. There was inside of him, two loves. One, the love of money, and the other love was something else – another love, which flamed up, after his betrayal. We cannot find any other object for this other love except for Jesus. Judas felt a love for Christ, but the flame of this love was tainted with a shadow, his heart was divided. So says Father Ricciotti, in his book ‘The Life of Christ.’
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The Gospel today tells us the Greatest Commandment: ‘Thou shall love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, thy whole soul and thy whole mind.’ The mystery of the divided heart in Judas is a mystery which repeats itself through history. I knew a young man who felt called to the priesthood; but his heart was so attached to other things – pleasures, comforts, desires of this life – Year after year he lived with a heart torn by two loves, a tortured heart; comforts and desires of this life won out.
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Very few people, actually, love God with their whole heart.[i] Most love their relatives, their friends, their sports, more – God must even compete with love of pets! Of these St. John says, they do not have life, they are dead. 1 John 3:14 – ‘He who does not love, abides in death.’
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We are commanded to love God with our WHOLE heart, not part of it. Not holding on to our favorite sin, or vice, or habit. To love God totally, is to seek to become a saint. To become a saint, is to love God totally. And this is to find happiness: total love of God IS happiness.
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And love is not an emotion or high-sounding words, it is in the will. Thomas Aquinas’ sister asked him, ‘How can I become a saint.’ His reply: ‘Just will it.’ In other words, ‘Do it!’ A person loves God, not by what he says, or even how many prayers he can say. It is whether he does everything in his life for the sole purpose of pleasing God.
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This week will be the feast day of St. Joseph Cupertino, the Flying Saint. For him, over 70 documented cases of levitation. Once, the Spanish Admiral and his wife visited the Franciscans, and Joseph went to see them in the Church. But entering, he noticed up high, the statue of Mary, and overcome with emotion, he flew 30 feet over them to the statue. Everyone was speechless. He once saw a lamb, and thinking of the Lamb of God, filled with love, he took it in his arms and floated up into the air. Joseph would often say, ‘Have a good intention in everything you do,’ do all for God.
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To love God with all our heart, is to do everything, always, with the intention of pleasing God. The most insignificant action done in order to please the Lord, is of infinitely greater value than many impressive works done without this motive.[ii]
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Inside of each person we may say, there are two wills. The superior will and the sensual will. These two war against each other. The sensual will is the appetites, the flesh, the passions, desires. These war against the superior will in us, our mind. St. Paul says, I see another power in me making war against my mind.[iii]
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So there is above, God’s will, calling us to good; and there is our superior will, which wants God, and to praise and please him; but then there are the lower appetites, the sensual will, which lures us to choose against God. This is the war of the two loves.
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Yet who is more worthy of our love than God? Our dear Father in heaven, who is so infinitely powerful that he can make planets and suns, and so infinitely good, as to send his Son to die for us. St. Augustine says that God has a greater desire to do good to us than we have to receive it. And even if the most revolting sinner on earth were to repent of his sins, Our Father instantly pardons and embraces him. Who is more deserving of our love? No one.
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We should then examine ourselves: do we love God with our whole heart? What is it that drives us? What is it that we really desire the most? This is what we love. I know people who when they hear about some blasphemy, or some filthy artwork by a freak artist against Christ, or some mockery of the Church, they will say, ‘O, that’s a shame.’ Or when told that the government has made laws against Christ’s Church, her freedom of religion, they will say, ‘well, it doesn’t concern me.’ Yet say one word against their favorite sports team, and they will become outraged, and leap to its defense, with many reasons and explanations – to defend their love. Disagree with some over the latest fashion or criticize their favorite movie star, and they will boil with passion.
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You don’t have to scratch very deep, to find a person’s love. When someone offends the object of our love, or hinders us from obtaining it – when you see a person aroused to anger over the thing dear to their heart – then you will find what they love, and many times it is not God. Jesus said, ‘Your treasure is where your heart is.’
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So where is our heart? Is it entangled in useless things, giving God second or even 3rd place? The heart of the Blessed Virgin was never entangled in other loves; ‘Mary, you are called ‘Mother of Good Counsel.’ Counsel us, your children, and untangle our hearts, that we will love God with our whole heart, and soul, and mind.
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Entrusted to the prayers of St. Nicholas
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[i] Ideas here are borrowed from ‘Sermons of St. Alphonsus Ligouri, p. 345.
[ii] Spiritual Combat, p. 28-30.
[iii] See Romans 7:23
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin
Friends in Christ, in the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola we find that one day he met a Moor while riding his mule along a road. They began to discuss religion, and the Moor did not say good things about the Blessed Virgin; but the Moor was in a hurry, and went on ahead out of sight. Now as Ignatius thought more about this, about what the man had said, he became very angry, and wished that he had defended the honor of Mary better.
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He thought that perhaps he should go after that Moor and stab him, for what he said. But coming to a fork in the road, he did not know which path the Moor had taken. He decided he would let go of the reins, and allow the mule to choose the path. If the path led to the Moor, he would stab him. Otherwise not. Fortunately, the mule did not take the path of the Moor, and Ignatius later learned that violence is not the way of a Christian. Nevertheless, we see from this incident the great love that he had for Mother Mary and her honor.
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Today is the birthday of Mary, her Nativity. When Mary was born to St. Anne and St. Joachim, it was without sin. Mary was the culmination of a long, long time of humanity waiting. As we see in the Gospel, generations and generations prepared and waited for the Savior, and now is finally born, the Mother of the Savior, the beginning of the New Dispensation.
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At the age of 3 Mary wanted to go and learn and pray at the Temple, as did many of the virgins, so her parents took her, where she prayed and studied night and day. She knew from the prophets, that the savior would be born of a virgin, and she prayed often for that virgin, whoever she was. It did not dawn on her, that SHE would be that girl. But she did pray often, that she would live to see the Redeemer whenever he was to come.
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In the Church, in the Mystical Body of Christ, Jesus is the head, and we are the members, St. Paul says this. Of Mary it can be said, that she is the neck, of the Mystical Body. Pope St. Pius X, following St. Bernard, said this very thing in his encyclical Ad diem illum in 1904. He said that in the Mystical Body, Christ is the Head and Mary is the neck through which the head exerts its power and strength on the body. It is through Mary, that all spiritual gifts are communicated to us.
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The Blessed Virgin remains always close to us if we call on her. She knows what it is like to grow up, like other children, because she did. She knows our troubles almost before we tell her. Let us therefore always defend the honor of this good Mother, and call on her often. St. Antoninus says, it is impossible that the Mother of God should pray in vain. Her prayers are always heard, because they are the prayers of a Mother. Pray for us Mary, especially as we honor you on your birthday.
The Ends do not Justify the Means
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Beloved in the Lord, if you open your bible to the 1st Book of Kings, you will read that King Ahab liked to look at the beautiful vineyard next to his palace; it belonged to a man named Naboth. The King wanted that vineyard, but Naboth did not want to sell it. Ahab was sad, but his wife Jezebel said, ‘I will get it for you.’ So she had people lie and accuse Naboth of terrible crimes, so he was stoned to death. ‘Now, go and take possession of the vineyard,’ she said to him.
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Friends in Christ, there may be things that we want, like Naboth’s vineyard, or things that would be good to have, but we cannot obtain them by doing something evil. If a boy wants to buy his mother a birthday present, that is a good thing; but he may not steal money in order to buy it. We may not do evil, in order to achieve good. The ‘ends do not justify the means.’[i]
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By the ‘ends,’ we mean the goal, by the ‘means,’ is the way that we achieve that goal. The ends – the goal – cannot not justify bad means. If we are very much in need of a job, we try hard to get one; but we may not lie on the application in order to get it. We want a wonderful composition in literature class, but we may not copy someone else’s paper to do it. Even if something is VERY good, we may not do evil in order to obtain that good.
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‘My father is dying, I hate to see him suffer, so I will overdose him to end his life. No! Alleviating suffering is a good thing, but we may never use evil means to attain it, otherwise the whole action becomes evil. So this is an important principle in the Christian life which most distinguishes us from pagans.
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In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul says that we may not do evil in order to achieve good. (Rom 3:8) Every moral action requires, that WHAT we wish to achieve be good, but also, HOW we achieve that result must also be good. Lance Armstrong wanted something good, winning the Tour de France, fine; but cheating and using drugs made his achievements evil, not good.
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Today we see in the Gospel, that Jesus speaks about setting goals, such as building a tower. He says that we must sit down first and decide HOW we will build it. HOW we achieve our goal is just as important in the moral life. Our Lord says that if we have a good goal, the tower – and we wish to build it without the proper means, people will laugh at us when we fail to achieve it. Lance Armstrong did not take the proper means to achieve his goal, and now he is laughed at.
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If we wish to do something good, but we do it in a sinful way, we will then not have done any good, and the devil will laugh at us. ‘I want my boyfriend to love me, so I will indulge sinful pleasures with him.’ Now although being loved is good, sinning to achieve it, poisons the whole thing. ‘There is a great song I like, so I’ll get it illegally, but this is a sin; we may not do evil in order to achieve good.
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Now it may have occurred to you that our society totally rejects this principle, and that’s for sure. Everywhere, people do evil, in order to get what they want. Nowhere does the spirit of the age go more against the Christian faith than in this area.
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I’m pregnant; this will affect my career plans, my parents will be angry – so I’ll get an abortion. No! While sound career plans and good relations with parents are good things, we may not do evil to obtain what we wish. Some people rationalize; they say ‘It was an agonizing decision, the most difficult in my life, to abort my baby’ – or something else. They want it to seem somehow moral or ok, because they ‘agnonized’ over the decision. But this doesn’t make it right at all.
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These days, if people want something bad enough, they will rationalize and find any means to get it. I want a baby, so I will use any means to achieve it: surrogate motherhood, invitro fertilization, people even steal other people’s babies! ‘I want an ‘A’ on my exam, it is critical for Law School, therefore I will cheat because this is just TOO important. But we may not do evil to achieve good, even if it is very important.
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Christians live a different way: If telling the truth at work will get me in trouble, I will do the right thing, no matter the cost. My girlfriend will stop going out with me if I won’t move in with her – so-be-it; I will not do what is immoral to have her. This principle is generally what will tell, whether one is a true Christian or not.
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Why do people so often do evil in order to achieve good? Because otherwise, they will have to suffer. Every time we say ‘no’ to doing something wrong, we must suffer a little bit. And this is why Our Lord says in the Gospel today that we must take up our cross to follow him. Being a disciple of Christ is to be a person of integrity; a true Christian does what is right no matter the cost.
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St. Perpetua, a young woman of the 4th century, was challenged by the authorities: ‘Are you a Christian,’ they demanded to know. She could have done what was easy to save her life, denied her faith – but no. Her response was strong and clear: ‘Yes I am a Christian.’
May the Blessed Virgin pray for us, that we also will always do what is right, no matter the cost; that we too can say: ‘I am a Christian.’
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[Entrusted to the prayers of St. Agatha]
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[i] CCC 1753
I am a sinner
Friends in Christ, today we see in the gospel, that once Peter experiences the sense of Awe in the presence of Christ, he feels his unworthiness – his sinfulness. ‘O Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.’
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When a person falls into sin – I mean, when a person who wishes to serve God – falls into sin, one can become discouraged, there can be a sense of despair. People will sometimes get caught in sinful actions or fall due to a weakness that they have or propensity toward a certain vice – it is easy when one falls to feel discouraged.
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It is not uncommon for a person to admit that having fallen into a certain sin, they say ‘I stopped praying and didn’t want to go to Mass.’ ‘Why, I ask.’ ‘Because I felt so sinful, I didn’t feel I should be around God. Other people, once having fallen into a certain sin, becoming discouraged, they say, ‘what’s the use, I am a disgrace before God,’ and so they just proceed to commit more sins – because they have given up.
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On the contrary, the saints tell us that if we fall, we should immediately ask the Lord’s forgiveness, determine to confess when we are able, and then begin again – to serve the Lord with love. The devil wants us to fall, yes. But his real game is to get us to despair of God’s love, to say, ‘what’s the use.’ That’s his real game.
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St. Francis de Sales says that we must practice patience, not only with others, but with ourself. ‘Some, he says, after a fall are so upset with themselves that they commit a thousand other faults. St. Aloysius Gonzga says, the devil always finds fish to catch in troubled water. We must not have a trouble heart.
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‘If we have fallen into a sin, says St. Alphonsus, we must not be disturbed, but humble ourselves peacefully; detest the sin, and have recourse to God. To be very upset over our sin is pride; we say, ‘How could I – how could I have fallen like that!?!’ But this is pride. To the saints, it was no surprise that they would fall, because we are all weak and foolish. Therefore, we must never lose our peace, even over our sins, because we have a heavenly Father who loves us, and is waiting for us to return.
The Gospel of St. Luke
Friends in Christ, we are in the 22nd week of Ordinary Time, and during the course of Ordinary Time, we first read from the gospel of Mark for some weeks, then for a long period the gospels are from Matthew, and now we are beginning to read from the gospel of St. Luke.
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The name Luke is Greek, and so St. Luke is a gentile. His gospel is written for the gentile converts to the Faith. These converts would have received a good deal of instruction before they were baptized – RCIA was 2 years in those days. But now St. Luke wishes to give them a deeper knowledge of the truths of their religion, and at the same time to show them on what a firm basis is their faith.
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A running theme through the gospel of Luke, is the universality, the catholicity, of the Christian faith. God’s mercy and forgiveness and salvation is offered to all people, not just the Jews. Women are portrayed in a favorable light, and the subject of prayer is stressed very much.
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St. Luke was also an artist and a doctor, and his gospel shows how he portrays people as living characters, details are often given of a medical nature, especially with the healings of Christ. The quality of St. Luke’s Greek is excellent. In his prologue, he tells why he is writing: ‘Many, he says, have drawn up a narrative concerning the things that have taken place. I also have determined, after following up things carefully from the very beginning, to write for thee an orderly account that you may understand the certainty of the words in which thou hast been instructed.”
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He begins with Mary and the infancy of Christ, which he probably learned from the Blessed Virgin herself. His Gospel begins in Jerusalem where the people are awaiting a Savior, and it ends in Jerusalem with the risen Christ. In these pages, the Holy Spirit is seen to be very active.
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The turning point in the Gospel is in chapter 9, when Jesus decides to go up to Jerusalem to preach and to die for our salvation. St. Luke emphasizes a great deal Jesus going to Jerusalem; he highlights the priestly character of Christ’s mission. It is for this reason that the symbol of St. Luke is the Ox, or the Calf – animals which symbolize sacrifice.
St. Genesius, the Actor
Friends in Christ, today on the Liturgical Calendar, there is no Obligatory feast to celebrate; but if you open up the Roman Martyrology for August 25th, you will find that there is an interesting saint listed for today: St. Genesius of Rome. So I thought it would be good for us to honor this saint today.
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Back[i] in the 3rd century, the cruel emperor Diocletian ruled the Roman Empire, a mortal enemy of Christians. One day, as the emperor was coming into Rome, the leaders prepared many entertainments for him, including a comedy, acted out on stage.
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Now in this performance, one of the actors had the idea to mock the Christian Sacrament of baptism, which would surely amuse the people who had nothing but contempt for the Catholic Faith. This actor, named Genesius, had learned something of the Catholic religion from his friends. So he laid himself down on the stage, pretending to be sick, and said, ‘Ah, my friends, there is a great weight upon me, and I would like it to be lifted.’
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The others answered, ‘What shall we do to help you? Would you like us to plane you, to take some of the weight off of you?’ ‘You idiots!’ he exclaimed, ‘I wish to die a Christian, that God may receive me on the day of my death. I must turn from idolatry and superstition.’
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Then a priest and exorcist were called, that is to say, two actors who played these roles. Sitting down at his bedside they asked: ‘Well, my child, why did you send for us.?’
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But it was at this moment, that he was touched by God; Genesius was suddenly converted. No longer joking, he answered the priest: ‘I wish to receive the grace of Jesus Christ, and to be born new, so that I may be delivered from my sins.’ The other actors then went through the ceremony of baptism, and he answered each of the questions with seriousness. After this, other actors who came as soldiers, brought him and presented him to the Emperor, to be examined, as was done with the martyrs.
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Genesius then declared himself openly and seriously, standing upon the stage, ‘Hear O emperor, and all you that are present: officers, senators, and people; hear what I am going to say. I had always detested even the word ‘Christian;’ I learned it’s rites and mysteries only to ridicule them; but when I was on stage, about to be baptized, I saw a company of angels over my head, who recited out of a book all the sins I had committed from my childhood; they took that book and plunged it into the water, and the book came out whiter than snow.
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I therefore advise you, O great emperor and all here present who have mocked these mysteries, to believe with me that Jesus Christ is the true Lord; and that it is through him that you may obtain the forgiveness of yours sins.
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Diocletian, enraged at these words, ordered him to be beaten, and to sacrifice to the gods. He was put on the rack, where he was torn with iron hooks and burnt with torches. But he persisted in crying out, ‘There is no other Lord beside him whom I have seen. No torments will remove Jesus Christ from my heart and my mouth. In the end, he became a martyr by decapitation.
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God’s mercy can surprise anyone. As his grace was suddenly offered to Genesius, he offers special grace to us very often, including opportunities to stand fast in the faith when challenged. Let us never say ‘no’ to the beautiful grace he offers us.
[i] This account comes from the new, Butler’s Lives of the saints.
