It is that Important!

A Reflection on this Friday’s Gospel (Matthew 10:16-23) – 12 July 2024

Crucify us—torture us—condemn us—destroy us! Your iniquity is the proof of our innocence. … We become more numerous every time we are hewn down by you: the blood of Christians is seed. (Tertullian Apol. 50.12–13)

     Tertullian wrote these words around 197 A.D. in Carthage, North Africa. At the time, North Africa was the center of some of the worst of the Roman persecutions of the Church. His taunt, in an open letter to Roman officials, demonstrates the courage of the Church amid intense oppression. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the early Church. For these Martyrs, bearing witness to Christ and the power of the Gospel was so important that they courageously placed their lives in jeopardy. They went out fearlessly amid the wolves. Do we have the same courage today?

     Jesus tells the Apostles and every Christian that follows until He comes again, “Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves.” (Matthew 10:16 NABRE) Wolves are a particularly dangerous enemy for a flock of unprotected sheep. In Sacred Scripture wolves are a symbol of treachery, ferocity, and bloodthirstiness. The wolves are those that prey particularly on the weak and the separated. Jesus warns against those “who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7:15 NABRE) Wolves are ever present, sometimes elaborately disguised, and always dangerous.

     Note that Jesus sends His Apostles out knowing the dangers they face. He describes the risk as coming from every corner: religious officials, the government, and even friends and family. Yet, despite the danger, He will not hold them back to cower behind protective walls but sends them out. Love drives them into the world. “Shrewd as serpents and simple as doves,” (Matthew 10:16 NABRE) each Christian Martyr’s life bears eloquent witness to the importance of every baptized Christian’s mission. A pursuit from which none must shrink back in fear. Tertullian writes,

“Who, when he has approached, does not desire to suffer so that he may procure the full grace of God?” (Tertullian Apol. 50.15)

     The Church, the body of Christ, should not be surprised that the wolves are on the prowl as much today as they were in the time of Tertullian. The hostility of the world to the message of salvation has not abated. Open Doors is an international watchdog group that advocates for Christians. According to the latest Open Doors report, World Watch List 2024, in 2023 more than 317 million Christians face very high or extreme levels of persecution every day with 4,998 documented martyrs, 14,766 Churches and Christian properties destroyed, and 4,125 Christians being detained. (World Watch List 2024)

     Most of the open attacks against Christians are centered in Africa and Asia. However, we should not become complacent. Some of the most subtle attacks, those wolves in sheep’s clothing, come in the form of a culture which Pope Francis named as the culture of comfort, the culture of consumerism, a throwaway culture. (Homilies 8 July 2013 and 4 October 2015) It is a culture of grasping for what can never make us happy.

     The Lord’s message to us today is not to sit passively amid a culture that is openly hostile or insidiously passive-aggressive to the Gospel and the virtue it proclaims. The Lord has sent many before us and is still sending us now as agents of God’s grace into the world. Jesus tells us in the Gospel that:

When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to say. For it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Matthew 10:19–20 NABRE)

     We are never alone amongst the wolves. We have a mighty Shepherd. God will speak through and for us. The Holy Spirit gives us words of divine wisdom. Therefore, we must die to our fear of rejection and inadequacy and place our faith in God and His strengthening with sanctifying and actual grace. We must live the Good News! For, “whoever endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22 NABRE) Christ and those who have not heard the Gospel are counting on you! It is that important.

By yourself, if you don’t count on grace, you can do nothing worthwhile, for you would be cutting the link which connects you with God. With grace, on the other hand, you can do all things. (St Josemaria Escriva 77)

Endnotes:

Escrivá, St, Josemaría. The Forge. Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Francis. Homilies of Pope Francis, 2013–2015 (English). Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2016. Print.

New American Bible. Revised Edition (NABRE). Washington, DC: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2011. Print.

Tertullian and Minucius Felix. Apologetical Works and Octavius. Ed. Roy Joseph Deferrari. Trans. Rudolph Arbesmann, Emily Joseph Daly, and Edwin A. Quain. Vol. 10. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950. Print. The Fathers of the Church.

World Watch list 2024. Open Doors International. (2024). https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/