A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. The mother of Zebedee's sons came up to Jesus accompanied by her sons to do Jesus' homage and to ask a favor of him. What is it you want? Jesus said. The mother answered, promise me that these sons of mine will sit one at your right hand and the other at your left in your kingdom.
Jesus, in reply, said, you do not know what you are asking. Can you can you drink the cup I am to drink of? They said, we can. Jesus said, from the cup I drink of, you also shall drink. But sitting at my right hand or my left is not mine to give.
That is for those for whom it has been reserved by my father. Now, the other 10, on hearing all of this, became indignant at the two brothers. Then Jesus called them all together and said to them, you know how those who exercise authority among the gentiles lord it over them? Their great ones make their importance felt. It cannot be like that with you.
Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest, and whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all. Such is the case with the son of man who has come not to be served by others, but to serve, to give his own life as a ransom for the many. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. We repeated several times this morning in the Responsorial Psalm, those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. Every time I put on these red vestments, which you know signify we are celebrating the feast of a martyr, one idea strikes me.
And this is true. I'm not making it up. That for many people, martyrdom is easy. For most of us, if being a really genuine first class Catholic meant some great heroic act, many of us would rise to it, even speaking humanly, not talking about God's grace or anything like that. Martyrdom is not an extraordinary phenomenon.
You can get martyrs for almost any cause, and history shows that. Because martyrdom is something generally quick and fast, you get it over with, you make a resolution, there's a certain glamour about it. It's like pulling the trigger, you know, on a gun. People who really want to commit suicide do it that way. They don't cut their wrists.
But the thought strikes me, and again I'm speaking on a perfectly human level, the very same person and I'm I'm thinking of concrete instances of men and women, mothers and fathers, who are who have been called upon by force of circumstances to make really heroic sacrifices for I'm not I I repeat, I'm not talking to supernatural order at all, who have been called upon to make heroic sacrifices for their children, make them. But those very same persons in the day in and day out, humdrum, monotonous, unheroic, boring even, duties of daily living fail, some of them miserably, miserably. The same way about the relationship between husbands and wives. I've seen plenty of instances where either partner rose to heroic levels to show their love for the other person, but they couldn't do it on a daily basis. The day in, the day out, the monotonous, the boring, the humdrum, the routine business of living.
Every time as I say I put these vestments on, I think about this. We are all called to the same goal. See, this is something we ought to remember. Let's not put the saints here and the martyrs there and and the and the innocent babies over here and and all and the heroic saints over there. Remember, we are all called as Christians to the same goal, And we either make it or we flunk out.
That's putting it very you either make it or you don't make it. You either succeed or you're a failure. And we have all of us the same common goal. Only question that in many instances, and in every instance to some extent, rests upon me is how I'm going to get there. How am I going to make it?
How am I going to run the race as Saint Paul so vividly tells us? How am I going to do it? That's where I come into the picture. And, of course, here's where god's grace comes into the picture. Because from the moment you're baptized, you are a transformed person.
You're no longer in the natural order. You're no longer called upon to perform heroics, to be a Socrates or something like that. You're called upon to be a Lucifer, a carrier of the light. You were given your completely supernatural vocation at that baptismal ceremony. You are a transformed person, and henceforth, you are living for God.
Well, that's what we say, you know, they're words. They're words. At the marriage ceremony, this thought is interjected that the husband and the wife are supposed, and I think this is a very profound truth, isn't there's nothing fluffy about it and soft, that the husband and the wife has a responsibility for the spouse for their salvation, to care for them, to love them, to cherish them, not for themselves. By themselves, I mean, either for, altruistically or egotistically, but to cherish them for god. The same way with parents and their children.
You see, we don't think about these things enough in reality. We are all called upon in a word to carry this red of martyrdom. And let me tell you, it is not any easier if it's spread out over a lot of years than in one fell move a moment to say, yes, take off my head if you want, I will not submit as a Thomas More did, or a John Fisher, or the Carthusian monks. I am not downgrading the heroism of these people, far from it. But what I want to bring out is the is is a very theoretical thing.
That when we do this, we are not coming to grips with something tangible, with something we can get a hold of that that grips our imagination. This is the point I wanna make, that when you you or anyone else says, I am living for god, you can't compare that with saying, I am living to give my children a good education. I am living to give them a good home. I am living to give them a good good food. I am living to give them good health.
I am living to build up a good strong business. I am living to achieve a great name or a great breakthrough in science. These things I can get a hold of. These are tangible. These I can embrace with my imagination, and they attract my whole person.
How do you compare that when you say there's only one head of Christ Church and that's the pope and no Henry the eighth is a pope? Put those two things together, especially if the reigning Pope happens to be not so popish. See, here's what Newman, you see, in his absolutely fantastic way. He develops this on I can even see the pages on the right hand side, where he develops this idea that how difficult it is when the in a crunch for us to to to keep hold of to keep hold of god and the supernatural when everything is pulling us away from it. And I say you can't do it without god's grace.
You anybody can do it for a minute or for a day. They can make a big deal. They can make a big sacrifice. Almost all of us can do that. But for three hundred and sixty five days of the year and of an extra one in leap year, day in and day out, doing our daily job for God, keeping him in mind, keeping him in focus, making him dominant over all of these things which are trying to capture us, that is martyrdom.
That is martyrdom, and anyone does it deserves to be remembered in red vestments for my part. And yet, this is what we are all called upon to do. When you look at the roster of saints, you know, we we neglect them too much because we put them out there. Remember, this can be a tremendous help to us. We we think of a saint like Saint Peter Claver, he was an eccentric of the first water.
We think of a Saint Labre, another man, a fantastic guy. But the point is we aren't called upon to follow in their footsteps. You take little Saint Teresa, we call her the little flower as opposed to the great Saint the great Saint Teresa of Avila. I love that, the great in the little business. But the thing is, Saint Teresa of Lisia.
Here's a quiet little girl who grew into womanhood, and all she wanted to do was the day's job and to do it well for Christ. That's all she wanted to do. How simple, how absolutely difficult, and completely deserving of the red. The name of the father, and of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.