Today's Word
"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
Tertullian
Today's Reflection
In the summer of 64 AD, Rome burned.
Nero needed someone to blame. He chose the Christians.
What followed was savage.
Men and women were thrown to dogs, crucified, set alight to serve as torches in Nero's gardens at night.
These were not famous people. We do not know most of their names.
The Church barely had decades on the earth and already it was being asked to die for what it believed.
And yet something strange happened.
The persecution did not extinguish the faith.
It spread it.
The courage of those who died confounded the watching world.
It raised a question that would not go away: what does a person believe so deeply that they will not deny it, even at the cost of their life?
We do not face that question today.
But we face softer versions of it constantly.
The faith that costs us nothing may not be faith at all.
These martyrs remind us that the Gospel was never meant to be comfortable.
It was meant to be true.
Today's Prayer
Lord, we remember today those who died rather than deny you.
We do not know their names. You do.
Give us a fraction of their courage:
to hold our faith not just when it is easy,
but when it costs us something.
May their blood, spilled so long ago, still bear fruit in us today. Amen.
Today's Call
Do one thing for your faith today that is slightly uncomfortable.
Speak about it to someone who does not share it.
Pray in public.
Act with conspicuous Christian generosity.
Let your faith cost you something small.