“Viva Cristo Rey!”

A Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Lent

 

 

In a cedar grove 

on the grounds of the seminary

that I attended in Cincinnati, Ohio,

stands an iron statue of the Virgin Mary.

            Its height is about four feet,

            a gentle smile rests on her face

            and the folds of her garment

            wrap her in a smooth and delicate manner.

 

            If you were to walk around the statue

            and look at the back of the image, however,

            you would notice an unexpected detail:

            a bullet hole.

 

            According to local legend,

            the statue, which comes from Mexico,

           deflected a bullet intended to kill

            a man inside a church

            during the Cristero War.

 

            Years later, this man immigrated to the United States.

            As sign gratitude to God,

            he brought the statue with him

            and donated it to the seminary.

 

Religious persecution...

it forms a part of our history

and continues to affect the Church today.

 

From the days the of martyrs in the early church

to the present time,

there exist places where Catholics 

have to gather for Mass 

       in secret, 

       few in number 

       and out of sight, 

       huddled around crates for altars,

             in concentration camps and POW camps,

             in caves lit by candlelight,

             in barns lit by moon light.

 

Our connection to persecution

is not as distant as we generally presume.

 

Two years ago, for example,

I encountered, at a retreat for priests,

a fellow priest from Nigeria,

whose brother priests

were kidnapped and killed.

 

A few years before that meeting,

I had a conversation with workers 

constructing a new addition on my church.

In the course of the conversation

I learned that two of them had immigrated

the Mexican state of Guanajuato,

a region that experienced intense conflict

during the Cristero War.

 

One of the men related that, during the war,

his aunt hid twenty Franciscan seminarians

and two priests on her ranch.

One day, soldiers arrived.

The seminarians and one of the priests escaped.

The other was apprehended, tortured, then shot.

 

As we draw near the end of Lent,

we prepare to focus on the Lord’s own imprisonment,

torture and execution.

 

The dark reality of religious persecution

provides a reminder

that living one’s faith in God

is not a privilege to be taken for granted

but an honor to exercise

every day of our life.

[Note: The ​picture that accompanies this article is of ​St. Miguel Pro, a priest who was executed during the Cristero War.]