26.05.25 Menjadi Martir Lewat Hidup Sehari-hari

q Monday 6th week of Easter "Jn 15:26-16:4a" "But when the Counsellor comes, whom I shall send to you...he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away...the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them." The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete (which means the Advocate or Counsellor) makes us witnesses of Jesus. We become witnesses because we have been 'with Him'. And in our lives we have to bear witness to our Faith. That's what 'martyr' means: witness. But don't get it wrong - martyrs didn't become saints only because they 'died' for Jesus, but because first of all, they 'lived' for Jesus. Martyrs could give witness with their 'deaths' because they had already given witness with their 'lives'. They were ready 'to die' for Christ because first they were ready 'to live' for Christ.On 20th July 1936 in Barbastro (Spain), 49 Claretian Missionaries, most of them young seminarians, were arrested by the militia to be killed for their (our) Faith. They were kept in a hall with small windows through which people in the street could shout and ridicule them. But two of the seminarians were Argentinian and the authorities didn't want to kill foreigners since this course of action would have created diplomatic conflicts. They asked their superiors what to do. On the one hand, they would have liked to die as martyrs and give their lives for Christ. On the other hand, they didn't have to. The superiors agreed that they should ask to be released. 'Your martyrdom,' they were told, 'will be a long life of service to Our Lord.' And so it was.We too can be 'witnesses' (martyrs) of Jesus Christ with our lives: when we work as we should, pray on time, speak confidently about our faith, when we stop a bad conversation, some gossip, a blasphemy, or we stand up for the lives of the innocent... That's how we bear witness to Jesus. That's our martyrdom. And that's what we ask through the intercession of Our Lady: the Holy Spirit's gift of fortitude.