Like a Mighty Champion

Like a Mighty Champion

March 22, 2013

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

By Melanie Rigney
But the Lord is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph. In their failure they will be put to utter shame, to lasting, unforgettable confusion. Jeremiah 20:11

In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice. Psalms 18:7

(Jesus said,) “If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”  John 10:37-38

Piety

Lord, make me your lion. Let my faith in you roar, even when those around me seek to silence the mention of your name.

Study

Bold words in today’s Gospel from Jesus: If I’m not doing God’s will, don’t believe me. If I am and you still don’t believe in me, then believe in what I am doing and see that he is in me, and I in him. There’s breathtaking personal spiritual indifference in that statement, amazing diminishment of self for the glory of God.

That faithful surrender of ego and physical life didn’t end with the Resurrection. Thousands, perhaps millions, of martyrs in the past two thousand years have gone to their deaths in the same spirit, valiantly offering up their lives when they were commanded to do something other than perform the Father’s works and deny his presence in them. And they continue to do so today.
Consider the story of one such person, Blessed Agnes Phila, one of the Martyrs of Thailand. In December 1940, the thirty-one-year-old sister of the Lovers of the Holy Cross Congregation was among those ordered to stop talking about Jesus; it was believed (wrongly) that they were spying for the French. After a combative discussion with authorities, including the threat of execution, Agnes wrote a letter to the town’s police chief that read in part:
We are asking you to carry out your order with us. Please do not delay any longer. Please carry out your order. Please open the door of heaven to us … we are well prepared. … We keep your commands, oh God, we wish to be witnesses to you, dear God.
Agnes and six of her companions were executed that month. It is said that she did not die initially, and instructed those who found her to bring back the police and complete the order. She told them she would pray for them. Bold words, spoken from a small but mighty champion. May we all be as confident when what we do in his name is challenged.

Action

Try to stop and think before you speak or act today in a potentially contentious situation. Through your actions, will you be performing the Father’s works? If not, how could you do so?