Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Today, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews admonishes its listeners to not become sluggish, but persevere in the faith and service of the holy ones. In eagerness and patience, we are to travel onward to the inheritance of the saints. Today is also the feast of St. Sebastian, martyr from the third century. His life is one of perseverance, even in death, to maintain faith in mind, body, and spirit.
Little is known of St. Sebastian. Legend holds that he was a Christian under the Roman rule of Diocletian, and was a faithful servant of the Church. Diocletian reigns in history as one of the most severe persecutors of the Church in its infancy. Issuing edicts which demanded the arrest of bishops, clergy, and laity, Diocletian attempted to suppress the Church through torture and murder. Records indicate that entire villages, deemed Christian, were slaughtered at his command. Though his attempts shed much Christian blood, they did not lead to triumph, for as early tradition posits, “in the blood of the Martyrs lies the seeds of the Church.” Contrary to popular belief, the Church does not flourish when it is met with comfort, but more often when she is met with struggle.
St. Sebastian willingly chose to stay in the midst of this danger and persecution, to guard and catechize those who were becoming Christian. Eventually he was betrayed by a false disciple and led to Diocletian, who ordered that he be pierced with arrows and left for dead. As the stories tell it, his perseverance was so intent that, even though all thought he dead, he came again before the Emperor, but this time as a bloodied prophet calling Diocletian to end the persecution against the Body of Christ. At this, he was beaten to death, marking him as a “double martyr”.
God is not unjust so as to overlook your work
and the love you have demonstrated for his name
by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones.
We earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness
for the fulfillment of hope until the end,
so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who,
through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.
There are many struggles in our midst, yet there appears to be so few martyrs. We are comfortable to say that many suffer for faith, maybe not in their bodies or flesh, but they are sufferers none-the-less through passive disdain by co-workers, friends, or family. Others proudly wage ‘culture-wars’ on corporate news talk-shows, self-proclaimed martyrs of ideology. I am not sure what this “suffering” looks like in the face St. Sebastian. I am not sure what this “suffering” looks like to the suffering (and massacred) Body of Christ in Nigeria. I am not sure what this “suffering” looks like to the thousands who continue to fill the streets demanding racial and economic justice. It seems that we desperately need the perseverance of St. Sebastian, not to simply ‘tweet’ solidarity with the oppressed, but to stand in their presence and take blows with them, in our bodies. Bloody as it is, it is the practice of the saints. Then, we may say with the Psalmist,
“I will give thanks to the LORD with all my heart
in the company and assembly of the just.
Great are the works of the LORD,
exquisite in all their delights.”
—Tyler DeLong