Martyrdom and Death

[13basia]

Can someone please explain if it is ok or rightly ordered when someone asks God for martyrdom in the sense they are killed for being a Christian? This seems like way to common of a thing in our cultural Catholicism nowadays. It seems like this is a gravely disordered thing to ask for because the sin of murder is required for it to happen and on the contrary we shouldnt we pray for boldness to profess christ but also that we be delivered from persecution and even martyrdom for it?

 

[Vico]

Can someone please explain if it is ok or rightly ordered when someone asks God for martyrdom in the sense they are killed for being a Christian? This seems like way to common of a thing in our cultural Catholicism nowadays. It seems like this is a gravely disordered thing to ask for because the sin of murder is required for it to happen and on the contrary we shouldnt we pray for boldness to profess christ but also that we be delivered from persecution and even martyrdom for it?

A person can ask for fortitude necessary to be a martyr. See Catechism 2473 below. Others may risk death helping others.

Excerpt from the Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary on the granting of special Indulgences to the faithful in the current pandemic, 20.03.2020

Health care workers, family members and all those who, following the example of the Good Samaritan, exposing themselves to the risk of contagion, care for the sick of Coronavirus according to the words of the divine Redeemer: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” ( Jn 15: 13), will obtain the same gift of the Plenary Indulgence under the same conditions.
Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary on the granting of special Indulgences to the faithful in the current pandemic

Catechism of the Catholic Church

2473 Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith: it means bearing witness even unto death. The martyr bears witness to Christ who died and rose, to whom he is united by charity. He bears witness to the truth of the faith and of Christian doctrine. He endures death through an act of fortitude. "Let me become the food of the beasts, through whom it will be given me to reach God."270

2280 … We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us.
It is not ours to dispose of.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

First of all, I don’t know where you live, but it’s not at all common for Catholics these days to go around seriously wishing to be martyred for the faith. There have been a few saints who have expressed a wish for martyrdom, either because they wanted to perform what they saw as a heroic act for love of God, or in at least one case because the saint (who had a sense of humor) said martyrdom was the only way he thought he would get to Heaven. (He got his wish in the end.)

Second, many people who allegedly pray for martyrdom are actually praying for final perseverance. They usually think their martyrdom may be inevitable, perhaps because they are living through a time of great persecution, or perhaps because they just think they are, and so they want to be strong in their faith till the end.

It is really best if such thoughts about wishing to be martyred are kept between oneself and God and perhaps one’s spiritual director and not put out for public consumption. Unless of course the death squad is right at your door every day, in which case it’s kind of normal to think about maybe being martyred as long as you remember God’s will be done.

 

[BartholomewB]

Can someone please explain if it is ok or rightly ordered when someone asks God for martyrdom in the sense they are killed for being a Christian?

Do Catholics really do that? I never heard of it. Did the Christians in Iraq ask God to ensure they would be butchered by the thugs of the Islamic State, rather than leaving them to practice their religion in freedom? Surely not.

 

[Diaconia]

In a general way, any Christian in Iraq is praying for martyrdom . . . every time they gather for liturgy.

The same is true for many other near Middle Eastern countries with Islamic theocracies.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,
Deacon Christopher

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Do Catholics really do that? I never heard of it.

It is not common, and most Catholics would prefer to avoid death. I think most spiritual directors would have a bit of a concern about someone wishing to be martyred nowadays, unless the person was living in some area where they were likely to die anyway as a result of conflict and they were simply hoping for some form of death that would please and give witness to God and allow them to go to Heaven (see below). If you’re sitting in a safe neighborhood in USA expressing these thoughts, your spiritual director would likely turn the conversation towards how you can witness for God every day in your daily life without being fixated on a death that you have no control over.

Some saints, such as St. Therese of Lisieux, have wished to be martyred while simultaneously expressing that God’s will be done. St. Therese was very young when having these wishes, and she idolized the missionary priests and the martyrs she read about, and would have liked to do those heroic things herself.

Because martyrdom is believed to send one straight to Heaven, people have also sometimes wished for it as a means of avoiding Purgatory punishment. It is notable that St. Therese actually ended up teaching that one could skip Purgatory without needing to be martyred, so wanting to bypass Purgatory was clearly not her motivation.

There is an article in another thread by some priest complaining about how the history of the French Revolution is taught and he says in there that he prays every day that he might become a martyr.

 

[Beryllos]

Being killed is not good in itself, and should not be desired. For the desire of martyrdom to be rightly ordered, as the OP wrote, the desire must be directed toward some good.

I think the rightly ordered desire for martyrdom could be expressed like this: “I love life, but some things are worth more than my life. I hate death, but some things are worse than my death.”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,

Ah yes, also a good point. Jesuit missionaries have been described as being happy to die as martyrs because their martyrdom would create many converts, especially if they died in a brave manner. I’m sure missionaries of other orders and those who weren’t members of orders sometimes had the same sentiment.
It’s important to note that the Jesuit priests didn’t go out with the intention of being killed though. They accepted it was something that might happen, but they did try to stay alive.

 

[BartholomewB]

They accepted it was something that might happen, but they did try to stay alive.

Exactly. That is the key difference.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

As a contrast, I have also read that the Jesuits and Franciscans and other missionaries to Japan were taken aback by how a lot of the Japanese Catholic converts would be enthusiastically rushing with their whole families to be martyred, as they were anxious to get to Heaven. It was a different cultural view of death than what Europeans are used to.

 

[Diaconia]

Actually that saying is from the ancient days of the Church, from Tertullian (155 - 240).

He penned it to encourage the Christians of the day, a great many of whom wore the martyr’s crown.

Since Christianity was illegal, and punishable by death; all those Christians were incredible witnesses to the salvific power of Christ.

Deacon Christopher

 

[goout]

We need to be careful what we ask for, because we may ask for something that God doesn’t will for us and we are not capable of. Humility goes a long way here.
I’ve been in many discussions where folks wonder if they would “have what it takes” if put to the ultimate test. I think these imaginings can be escapism, because they imagine the Christian life is proved by a one time act of courage, rather than facing the daily grind of dying to one’s self for others.

Consider: which of us will be radically kind to everyone we meet today? That is the small martyrdom most of us are called to embrace.