The pressure is always there, it seems.
No matter the year, the country or the ruling power, God-loving and God-fearing people seem to always feel the pressure to abandoned their silly ways of worship and conform to society.
Scripture is full of examples. So are many of today’s headlines – in many different languages, sadly. If it’s not a corrupt government, it’s an extreme fanatical wing of a world religion.
Our first reading from Maccabees is one of the more fascinating examples as it tells the story of Antiochus Epiphanes (“God Manifest” … although some called him Antiochus “the madman”) who was a Hellenistic ruler from 175 to 164 BCE.
A fierce believer that the multi-cultural empire he ran should conform to one Greek culture, he imposed strict rules intended to abolish Judaism. He raided the temples, stole their precious items and prohibited Jewish customs, including fasting.
There were many who quickly abandoned their faith – going along in order to get along – while others kept to their traditions only to suffer and be put to death. It happens today, too.
It got so bad back then that in the Greek gymnasiums built at that time – where the custom was to compete and congregate in the nude – Jewish men were forced to find a way to hide the mark of their circumcision, sometimes choosing painful surgical techniques to try and restore what had been clipped when they were children.
Ouch.
In some places today, perhaps the extent of our “holding back” means that we hide our crucifixes when company comes. Or we skip praying before meals when we go out to eat. We stop going to Confession and we certainly never suggest that our friends might need a good measure of Sacramental graces!
Erasing the culture of a religion or a nation is one of the most important jobs for a dictator. Saint John Paul II experienced this in Poland as a young priest. So did many priests and monks during the French revolution. And today, a growing number of Christians are being persecuted (if not beheaded) for their faith.
Churches are shuttered. Newspapers are taken over. Playhouses and theaters are shut down unless their artistic performances toe the line. Cultural leaders disappear or are made examples of in public. Faithful men are slaughtered on YouTube, women and children are raped and treated like animals.
We have seen it happen over and over.
But even beyond the famous dictators who ruled with an iron fist, over the years some leaders have learned to follow a different strategy. Today there is a kinder and gentler erasing of our religious culture – done gradually from within, rather than forcefully from above – by appealing to the lukewarm nature within us all. It is that gradual coaxing into a culture of injustice, intolerance and death that seems to cause many of us to lose our sight.
Today the Church turns to St. Margaret of Scotland, patroness of that country, who was a loving mother of 8 while helping to root out paganism through the unending example of extreme love for the poor. The Church also looks to St. Gertrude, a Cistercian nun who dedicated herself to the pursuit of perfection in every way as it pertained to being a follower of Christ.
Both of these holy women serve as examples for those of us who have begun to lose our sight. In today’s Gospel, one man calls out to Christ and begs to be able to see again. And so the miracle happens.
As we make our way through this life, we too should constantly ask Christ to open our eyes so that we can see the various paths before us. The right path. The wrong path. The easy path and the difficult path.
We are free to choose.
Let us pray that we choose wisely and that God continues to open our eyes to the Way, the Truth and the Life.
