While I was on retreat, we
celebrated the feast of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More.
One prayer for this feast,
taken from the modern Liturgy of the Hours, says:
Father,
you confirm the true faith with the crown of martyrdom. May the prayers of Saints
John Fisher and Thomas More give us the courage to proclaim our faith by the
witness of our lives.
Given our current troubled times
– and especially now that “gay marriage” has been legalized – I find this prayer
more meaningful than I would have a year ago…even a month ago! Already we are
seeing Christians who are suffering because of their willingness to proclaim
their faith by the witness of their lives: bakers, for instance, who are fined
for their refusal to bake a cake for a gay wedding, and forbidden to express
their opinion. Other business owners have met the same fate, and these were all
before the Supreme Court made its ill-advised decision. The power of the homosexualist
movement to silence the moral outrage of God-fearing people has been
incredible. Now with the weight of the law on their side, they will continue to
persecute those speak out against the sin of sodomy.

But we should not fear. Thomas
More, knowing that his death was imminent, wrote to his daughter the following:
I
will not mistrust [God], Meg, though I shall feel myself weakening and on the
verge of being overcome with fear. I shall remember how Saint Peter at a blast
of wind began to sink because of his lack of faith, and I shall do as he did:
call upon Christ and pray to him for help…
…And,
therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything
that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And
I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may see, it shall indeed
be the best.
Like Esther the Old
Testament, who saved her people from the evil will of one man, we should
remember that it is quite likely that God has put us here, now, in whatever circumstances we find ourselves as far as
defending the faith, “for such a time as this.”
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
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