The last few Sunday readings, the recent celebration of St. Agatha’s feast and (of all things) the Super Bowl have gotten me thinking about bravery in the modern day.
In some ways, I think it was easier ‘back in the day’. Either you were willing to be publicly shamed, tortured and killed for the truth, or you weren’t. Look at Jesus’ proclamation of ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your presence’. That was the start of His eventual persecution, ridicule and crucifixion – and there can’t be any doubt that He knew that when He got up to make that pronouncement.
St. Agatha too, went through a fairly straightforward persecution. After dedicating herself spiritually and physically to God, an interested & wealthy man made it his mission to make her give that up. She wouldn’t, and was forced into work at a brothel, then sent to prison before being tortured and eventually killed.
What makes this easier, if you will, is the straightforwardness of persecution. Everyone knew what a person had said, those who opposed them clearly wanted something contrary to that and the results were an obvious show of that conflict.
It seems to me that persecution in modern times has changed drastically, even as it has intensified (contrary to progressives’ claims of acceptance). Take Tim Tebow and this whole controversy about the commercial he & his mother created (who, by the way, reminds me of Mary Steenburgen of ‘Joan of Arcadia’ fame). Weeks before the advertisement aired, pro-abortion groups were taking a stand to lambast the Tebow family – despite having no idea what the ad would truly say. That the advertisement turned out to be as tame as a sleeping kitten doesn’t detract from just how vile some of these attacks became. How hard it must have been for the Tebow family to listen to the news each day!
And what of those who stand up for truth in day-to-day conversations? A person is no longer ‘just’ tortured or killed for their beliefs. They are turned into objects of scorn, lied about, dragged through the mud and shunned – and that’s usually in the conversation itself. The repercussions of standing up for the truth in, say, the workplace, start to become evident in missed promotions and layoffs – if not being formally reprimanded or threatened with legal action.
The modern man doesn’t ‘just’ torture and kill proponents of the truth, he destroys their life in a war of lies, innuendo and closed door decisions designed to punish.
Its hard to build up an eagerness to stand up for the truth when there’s not only certain rejection coming (as there always has been) but also a complete masking of whats really going on (which seems fairly new). Take Tebow again. The responses didn’t focus on the issue, they focused on masking the issue while redirecting people to a new falsehood: that CBS and Tim Tebow were bigoted, stupid – I even read one commentator comparing Tebow to the KKK.
I’m sure that smear campaigns happened back in the day (the attempt to label Jesus as a drunkard and a glutton come to mind), but its a whole new level nowadays.
But we need bravery more than ever. People are not ignorant of the terrible things that go on when someone tries to stand up for the truth, despite often turning a blind eye towards the reality. However, when someone stands up for the truth in the face of this, it makes their integrity all the more apparent. What would happen if ever person who sat in the pews on Sunday decided that this bravery was their responsibility?
That’d be more exciting than any Super Bowl commercial.
- Fr. Maurer