The Blood of Christ is the Holy Blood which Our Lord shed for us in His Passion. It is also that which we receive in Holy Communion in Mass. These, of course, are the same thing. This is the reality of the Holy Eucharist: we receive the True Body and True Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Eucharistic devotion is a mainstay in the Catholic Church, and you will find a deep devotion to the Holy Eucharist throughout the Church’s history. Intertwined with this, the Church has a long history of martyrs. We see this so far back, that it is even in the Bible. Not long after Christ’s ascension, we had our first martyr. In the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews who had accused him of blasphemy for his fearless witness to the Truth of Christ in the face of persecution. This pattern emerged again and again and again throughout Church history. Different eras, different reasons, and different persecutors. But the story was the same. Christians who stood their ground and defended the faith and Our Lord, at the cost of their own lives. From where do these martyrs get their strength, the strength to shed their own blood rather than renounce God? Of course, from God. We worship a God who was Himself martyred for preaching truth to a world that preferred lies. The Holy Blood shed by Our Lord Himself tells the story of what He is willing to do for us. Of course we are willing to shed our own blood for Him. Our lives, cut down by our persecutors, are a testament to His unending love and His undying truth.
One of the most incredible things about the martyrs of the faith is how truly universal they are: we have martyrs from all over the world, from every background and every walk of life. Perhaps when one thinks of martyrs, one’s mind is turned to the distant past. But Christians are martyred even now. Ask the Christians of Libya or those in countries like Iran and North Korea who embrace the Gospel in secret. Perhaps you might think of this phenomenon in the Roman Empire, but people have been martyred throughout the world. One of the most moving experiences I have ever had in my life was a visit to the Japanese city of Nagasaki. It’s a fairly small city, rather unassuming, and best known for being destroyed by a nuclear bomb during the Second World War. But it has another history: it is the heart of Japanese Christianity. The museum of the Holy Martyrs of Nagasaki is awe inspiring. These people, converts who heard the faith from passing Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits who traveled with the trade vessels, chose to die rather than renounce the faith. They were made to march 700 miles from Kyoto to Nagasaki, and they sang the Te Deum all the way. When they arrived, the shogun’s officials erected crosses on the hill, and like their savior, these martyrs were nailed to crosses to die, slowly and painfully. Yet even then, they persevered. They gave their lives for their Lord, in the same way their Lord gave his life for them.
There are stories in the museum as well of those others persecuted in the centuries where Christianity was illegal in Japan. Stories from a small child, who upon being enticed to renounce the faith with candies replied that he had no interest, that he would rather be sent to heaven than to renounce his faith. They killed him. One of the most astonishing things about the stories of the martyrs is how firm in their convictions they were. Saint Paul Miki forgave Hideyoshi, who had him nailed to a cross, from that cross. Again and again, the Holy Martyrs repeat that they should rather die ten thousand deaths than renounce God.
Also in Nagasaki was the Monastery of St Maximillian Kolbe. His martyrdom too is an incredible story. Though he is a martyr of charity rather than a martyr of the faith, the story is much the same: he died for his convictions, which came from God. He died in Christian charity to others. It can be harder to relate sometimes to martyrs from long ago, given how different the world is. Saint Maximilian Kolbe, however, was not so long ago. He was martyred quite far from Japan, in his native Poland. He was martyred in a place we all know well: Auschwitz. Following an escape, the guards decided to kill ten prisoners as retribution. One of the men who was picked cried out that he had a wife and children and begged to be spared. So Saint Maximilian Kolbe calmly volunteered to take his place. He led the other prisoners in prayer as they were slowly starved to death for two weeks. Eventually, the guards grew impatient and killed them by lethal injection. He faced this too with dignity.
It is the blood of martyrs which waters the church and helps it grow. It is exceedingly hard for the modern world to understand this sort of thing. We have a society whose relationship with death is quite bizarre. At once we think it the most awful thing possible and banish discussion of it from polite society, and at the same time we callously put to death millions of children and increasingly the elderly and the sick. When we do kill, we look away. These things go on by denying what they truly are. On the contrary, when the Christian discusses death, he looks at it dead on. Society is very unnerved by this, by the concept of martyrdom. The idea that we believe in something so strongly that we would rather die than stop believing is anathema to a world where all values are supposed to be malleable and change as society does. We hear so often that the Church must change to get with the times. Many martyrs were probably told just the same thing. And yet, they died rather than throw away God’s truth. The blood of the martyrs is often used as an attack on the church, to call it a death cult for venerating those who die for God. But it is precisely because we understand life that we are able to look death in the face. Those who are horrified that we would die for something are those who demand we go on living for nothing. It is better to live twenty years and die a martyr’s death than to exist for 80 years and die in one’s sleep having never lived a day.
Our Lord demonstrated Truth to us by His life, yes, but also by His death. Like the martyrs, this makes many in modern society very uncomfortable. We are told by television that we shouldn’t focus on His death but just on His life and teaching. This is, of course, absurd. How often in His teachings did He tell us that the Son of Man came to die for us? It is by His death that He conquered death and destroyed its power over us. The martyrs of the faith can face death, even death on a cross, with dignity and even with joy, because Christ, through His Holy Blood shed for us has destroyed the power of death over us. We can shed our blood because He shed His first. The Holy Blood of Christ has set us free from the power of death, so as we look down from the cross our persecutors have nailed us to, we are able to smile through the most terrible suffering, and embrace the gruesome death we have been subject to because we know that we are not going into death, but eternal life in the loving embrace of Our Lord. The One who suffered for us, who gave His own Blood for us, faced death so that we would never have to. Death is put to death, and we are set free. Thus, the blood of the martyrs flows, and the church is nourished by it, because Our Lord has set us free.
