SHOULD NOT BE AN OPTIONAL MEMORY

30 June 2006
Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome

SHOULD NOT BE AN OPTIONAL MEMORY
Mt 24:4-13

One evening in the middle of July of 64 A.D., the city of Rome was engulfed in flames. Spreading rapidly and burning for a week, the blaze turned half of the imperial city into ashes. It was said that while the flames was consuming the city, Nero, the reigning emperor, was playing his fiddle. The fiddle is probably legend, but the fire was all too real.

In the minds of his subjects, there was little or not doubt at all that Nero was responsible for the burning of Rome. However, to escape suspicion that he had anything to do with the fire and in response to public clamor, Nero set up a fact-finding commission that was tasked to determine the arsonists.

Needing a scapegoat, Nero easily blamed the Christians who were regarded as devotees of a new religion named after an obscure Jewish prophet. There began a series of dreadful persecutions against the Christians. To be a Christian meant to be a criminal, an outlaw, an enemy of the people. To be identified with the Galilean named “Jesus” was to incur the penalty of death. Many Christians – men and women of different professions and levels of society, including even children –therefore were killed with atrocious torments. In his Annales, even the pagan writer Tacitus testifies to these events and says that a huge multitude perished in the persecution Nero mounted against the Christians. In his letter to the Corinthians, Clement, bishop of Rome, praised the first martyrs of Rome and placed them before the Christians of his time as brethren who gave the finest example by their death for the Lord.

The memorial of the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome is an optional celebration in the liturgy today. But today, when many find it so easy to compromise their faith, these martyrs – and all heroes and heroines of our faith – should not be an optional memory.