The memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions today challenges us to recommit ourselves to the faith we often take so much for granted. Even though these young men lived in Uganda in the late 1880's their example shines bright for us today. They were young men, 16-to early 20's, newly converted or still Catechumens, but when challenged by their perverted King Mwanga, the refused his sexual advances and demands that they abandon their faith. The withstood beatings and on the forced march to their death, they prayed and sang hymns...even in their funeral pyre in which they were burned alive, they sang praise to God and affirmed their steadfast adherence to the faith they loved so much. Such an example they gave that a few years after their deaths, there were numbered 10,000 believers in Jesus, and even today, the faith remains very strong in that part of Uganda.
Closer to our times are the lives of Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J who was imprisoned for years in the Soviet Union and whose cause for canonization has been introduced, and Richard Wumbrand, whose book, Tortured for Christ tells the amazing tale of his 14 years of suffering. See
http://torturedforchrist.com/ We read of the persecutions and killings of ISIS going on right now. Persecutions have not stopped; people are still willing to give their lives for Jesus Christ. Do their lives and their sufferings not fire us up to love and live our faith to a higher degree, as if we were facing the sword at this moment?
Bro. Rene
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