My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
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MARTYRDOM: DEATH AND RESURRECTION
By Olivier L. Clement
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Martyrdom means witness. But to bear witness to Christ to the point of death is to become one who has risen again. Christian martyrdom is a mystical experience, the first attested in the history of the Church. It is recorded right at the beginning by the example of Saint Stephen (Stefanos) the 'protomartyr' (first martyr) in the book of Acts of the Apostles thus: (Stephen), full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the Glory of God, and Jesus standing at the Right Hand of God; and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened. And the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" ...Then they cast him out of the city and they stoned him; And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he said this, fell asleep, (Acts 7:55-60). Vision of glory ... prayer for the executioners...when history comes full circle and another witness is put to death, this very death 'opens the heavens' and allows the energies of love to make their entry into the world.
Martyrdom was the first form of sanctity to be venerated in the Church. And when there were no longer any martyrs in blood, martyrs in ascesis, monks, came instead. It was the monks who coined the saying that expresses the meaning of martyrdom: 'give your blood and receive the Spirit.' The martyrdom returned.
A martyr can be, at first sight, any man or woman at all. But when they are crushed by the suffering they are identified with the Crucified Christ and the power of the resurrection takes hold of them. In very direct accounts, composed at the time without embellishments, at the beginning of the 3rd century, we see a young Christian woman in prison lamenting the birth of her child (if a pregnant woman was arrested she was not sent to execution till after the birth). The jailer jeers at her. But Felicity gently explains to him that in the moment of her martyrdom another will suffer in her. Her friends Perpetua, in fact, feels nothing when she is exposed to the wild bulls. She is momentarily spared before coming out of the 'ecstasy of the Spirit' as if awakening from a deep sleep. And the martyrs, before meeting death together, give one another the kiss of peace, as during the Eucharistic liturgy. For the authentic Christian, Christian, death does not exist. He casts himself into the Risen Christ. In him, death is a celebration of life.
Felicity was eight months pregnant when she was arrested...Her labor pains came upon her...She was suffering a great deal and groaning. One of the jailers said to her, "If you are already crying out like this, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts?...'Felicity answered him, 'Then there will be another within me who will suffer for me because it is on His account that I am suffering...'
Perpetua was tossed in the air first [by a furious bull]. She fell on her back. As soon as she could sit up...she pinned back her hair which had come loose. A martyr cannot die with disheveled hair, lest she seem to be in mourning on the day of her glory. Then she got up and noticed Felicity who seemed to have collapsed. She went to her, gave her hand and helped her to her feet. When they saw both of them standing up, the cruelty of the crowd was subdued. The martyrs were taken out through the gate of the living...
"...The people demanded that the wounded be brought back into the arena so that they could enjoy the spectacle of the sword piercing the living bodies...The martyrs...came to the place that the crowd wanted. They gave one another the kiss of peace to consummate their martyrdom, in accordance with the rite of faith. All of them remained motionless to receive the fatal blow. (Martyrdom of Felicity and Perpetua, in the year 203 AD, at Carthage (Knopf-Kruger, p. 35-44).
The blood of the martyrs is identified with that of Golgotha, and so with that of the Eucharist, which imparts the inebriation of eternity. The martyr becomes Eucharist, becomes Christ. And that is why the holy relics of the martyrs, regarded as fragments of the glorified cosmos, of the 'world to come', are enshrined in the altars on which the Eucharist is celebrated.
O blessed martyrs, human grapes of God's vineyard, your wine inebriates the Church...When saints made themselves ready for the banquet of suffering they drank the draught pressed out on Golgotha and thus they penetrated into the mysteries of God's house. And so we sing, "Praise be to Christ Who inebriates the martyrs with the blood from His side.' (Rabulas of Edessa Hymn to the Martyrs [Bickell II, p. 262).
In the following passage from the letter written by Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Christians of Rome-the bishop of Antioch was being led to the capital of the Empire for solemn execution, at the beginning of the 2nd century-almost all the aspects of this 'death-and-resurrection' are brought together. The martyr crushed by the teeth of wild beasts, like grains of wheat in the mill, becomes eucharistic matter; he shares fully in Christ's divinizing flesh; he reproduces, in a quasi-liturgical sense, the Passion of the Crucified, in order to put on the Glorified, and to feel his victorious power. Victor, the conqueror, was the name given to every martyr. In Christ, the Spirit is, for Saint Ignatius, a stream of living water that leads to the Father. Here the body of death is no longer dissolved by ascesis and spiritual experience, but all at once by human violence, They Martyr hastens the coming to birth of the glorious body.
"I am writing to all the Christians to tell all of them that I am gladly going to die for God...Let me be the food of beasts thanks to which I shall be able to find God. I am God's wheat and I am being grounded by the teeth of wild beasts in order to become Christ's pure bread...by suffering I shall be a freeman of Jesus Christ and I shall be born again in Him, free...let no being, visible or invisible, prevent me out of jealousy from finding Christ. Let fire and cross, wild animals, torture, dislocation of my bones, mutilation of my limbs, the grinding to pieces of my whole body, the worst assaults of the devil fall on me, provided only that I find Jesus Christ...My new birth is close at hand. Forgive me, brethren, do not hinder me from living. Let me come into the pure Light. When I reach that point I shall be a man. Allow me to reproduce the Passion of my God. May anyone who has God in him understand what I desire and take pity on me, knowing what it is that straitens me...My earthly desires have been crucified. There is no longer in me any fire to love material objects, only living water that murmurs within me, 'Come to see the Father'...It is the bread of God that I desire, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ...and for drink, I desire His Blood, which is imperishable love. (Ignatius of Antioch To the Romans, 4-7 [SC 10, p. 130-7].
(To be continued)
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!"--Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God,
+Father George