Monday – 26th Week in Ordinary Time – A – Optional Memorial of Saint Lawrence Ruiz and companions, martyrs

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace be with you. My friends, before I entered the Franciscan order, I had the beautiful grace of living a life of a missionary in the land of the Philippines. And so for all of my Philippine visitors to FranciscanPreacher.com, I offer this reflection on today's memorial of their beautiful saint, Lawrence Ruiz and his companions, who were martyred in Japan, because I remember that the Filipino people were so full of love and so hospitable, and they would give you their hearts. Even the poor people of the Philippines would try to give you and help you out with everything they had and I remember that they were a simple people, and they were always so very proud of their wonderful saint, Lawrence Ruiz, whom the Church offers as an optional memorial today throughout the world.

So today's readings for his memorial (found beneath the homily) are about a faith that values eternal life more than the preservation of earthly life.

And the brothers in Maccabees endure death because they believe God will raise them again. (2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14)

And the Psalm reveals that where such courage is lacking, God is able to provide it when we hear in the responsorial Psalm:

“The Lord delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalm 34:5)

And then Jesus in the Gospel makes clear that fidelity to Him can bring rejection and persecution (John 15:18–21). Saint Lawrence Ruiz and his companions knew what this meant, precisely in their journeys through 16th-century Japan.

These were ordinary Christians, priests, religious, and laity, who discovered that when everything else could be taken from them, Christ could never be taken away from them. And this is something we all need to remember.

We hear in the first reading today from the Second Book of Maccabees, from the seventh chapter, these words:

“It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them to eat pork in violation of God's law. One of the brothers, speaking for the other, said, ‘What do you expect to achieve by questioning us? We are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors.’” (2 Maccabees 7:1–2)

So here, my brothers and sisters, we read this thousands of years after it happens.

And we think to ourselves, “What was the big deal? Just eat the pork.”

But to them, the eating of the pork was symbolic of infidelity to God and His laws, and they loved Him and respected Him so much that they said they would prefer to die.

My brothers and sisters, we're kind of forgetting this kind of loyalty to God in the world today.

But there are so many distractions and there are so many allurements of life that are presented to us.

“Here, have, eat, enjoy, dance. Don't worry if you fall into sin. It's all about enjoying this life.”

These are the words of the evil one, who tries to distance us from God.

Well, these brothers chose to remain close to God.

The issue appears small - eating forbidden food - but the real question is enormous: “Who has the final claim upon my life?”

And the courage of these brothers comes from refusing to place survival above fidelity to God.

Oh, if we could all arrive at this kind of courage.

The kind of courage that Saint Lawrence Ruiz and his companions embraced.

My brothers and sisters, when we hear in the Psalm, in the response to the Psalm:

“The Lord delivered me from all my fears.” (Psalm 34:5)

Notice that it is not saying that the faithful person never experiences frightening circumstances.

We're all going to face these kinds of challenges in our lives, but rather it says that God delivers us from the domination of fear.

And this is the freedom that we see in the martyrs.

They experienced fear, but they weren't dominated by it because of the grace, the courage, the strength, the love God placed in their hearts.

In today's Gospel, Jesus reminds His disciples:

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” (John 15:18)

Jesus doesn't tell His disciples to go out there and seek persecution, but neither should rejection surprise us.

When fidelity to Christ conflicts with the values surrounding us.

The disciple follows where the master has already gone.

Jesus says:

“If you belong to the world, the world would love its own, but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.” (John 15:19)

St. Lawrence Ruiz once said, “If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all to God.”

Lawrence makes today's first reading especially vivid because he was not a priest.

He was not a religious.

But he was a Filipino layman, a husband and a father from Binondo, Manila.

And he eventually travelled with Dominican missionaries and was imprisoned in Japan during the Tokugawa persecution.

He and members of the group were condemned at Nagasaki after refusing to abandon their Christian faith.

Saint John Paul II beatified the group in Manila in 1981 and canonized them in 1987.

Saint Lawrence Ruiz became the first canonized Filipino saint.

I had the great pleasure to be in the Philippines and to see the joy of the people there when they celebrated his feast.

My brothers and sisters, Saint Francis reminds us that we don't seek martyrdom simply for the sake of suffering, but he possessed the same radical conviction that Christ was worth more than everything else.

May this be our conviction as well as we ask Saint Lawrence Ruiz, his companions, and Saint Francis, to continue to pray for us so that we too can live by the Spirit of the Lord and have the courage to face our persecutions with love and holy joy.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Go in peace.