To the Band of Brothers: October 26, 2020
Good morning!
When Benedict XVI was elected pope in 2005 after the death of St. John Paul II, people noticed something odd: his shoes. From the very beginning, along with the typical white cassock and zucchetto (the skull cap), the Pope started wearing red shoes. There was a lot of speculation about this since the previous pope didn’t wear them. I mean, other than Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who wore red shoes? And, who makes shoes like that anyway? Prada? Gucci? Did he get them at Payless?
Shoes say a lot about the person. When I was growing up, my father always insisted his sons’ dress shoes be spic and span. He said you can tell a lot about a person by the quality of his shoes. I don’t know exactly why this came about, but he drilled it in us. As a matter of fact, even as a Jesuit, when I visit my father, one of the first things he does is look at my shoes to see if I need a new pair.
I think a lot of people actually agree with this. In the NFL today, designer cleats are all the rave. Players are always dolling up their footwear to send powerful messages. The league has what is called My Cause My Cleats where all proceeds benefit the specific cause of the player. If a wide receiver is involved with a particular cause, he will design his cleats to tell the world that he supports it. If it’s breast cancer awareness, the cleats will be pink. If it’s the Salvation Army, the cleats will be red with the Salvation Army shield on the side. If it’s for protecting animals, the cleats will have a cute puppy or kitten.
One can say that if you wear the cause on your feet, then it is a statement that you stand for something.
Well, step aside NFL because the Church thought of that a long time before you did. For generations, the popes wore red shoes, that over the years sort of fell out of use. It was just that Benedict XVI brought back the practice. By wearing the red shoes, the popes were telling the world that the Catholic Church stands on the blood of the martyrs. It was a nod to the millions of courageous men, women, and children who shed their blood for the sake of the faith. It is this ultimate sacrifice that we know planted the seeds for the promulgation and strengthening of the faith.
The word martyr is a powerful one. It is Greek and means “to give witness.” By opting to die for the faith instead of recanting it out of fear of persecution and death, the martyr makes a bold statement of how important and essential the faith is. It is a witness to the fact that our belief in Jesus Christ and our desire to live it is more important than life itself. Just think of it, if these martyrs did not die for the faith in times and places that have been so hostile towards it, the gospel of Jesus Christ would have no credence and would not have survived.
When we read the stories of these martyrs, we often think they are stories of a long time ago in places far, far away. Sure, when the Church first got started and the Roman Empire tried to snuff it out, it is understandable that the Apostles and early Christians would be hunted down and killed. But those were barbaric times and we have come a long way since then. Things are different now. Aren’t they?
Are you aware of the fact that the largest number of Christians who were martyred for the faith were actually martyred in the 20th century? Not more than a few decades ago the Church went through the bloodiest time in its history. More people died for the Catholic faith and in more places throughout the world in this recent century than in all the centuries before. Even today we suffer persecution and threats to our Catholic values. Just think of what happened a couple of weeks ago and how social media contributed to the uproar.
Today, the Church celebrates the feast day of eleven martyrs of the 20th century. These men and women were killed during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 in a town called Almería in Spain. It is a war that is very personal to me because my grandfather had to flee Spain to Cuba because of it. Two bishops, a diocesan priest, seven brothers of the Christian Brothers school, and a young laywoman were killed because they were Catholic. It was a complicated time (most times are) where the communist Republicans battled with a rebel group of Nationalists for control of the country. While there are documented atrocities done by both sides, it was the communist group that began to kill members of the Catholic Church and burn their seminaries, convents, and churches because of the incompatibility of the faith with their atheistic ideology. In three years, 12 bishops, 4,184 priests, 2,365 monks, and 300 nuns died for the faith.
There is an expression that says, “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.” The martyrs stood for the faith. They witnessed with their lives the centrality of our faith and the simple fact that Jesus, no matter what the consequences, has to be front and center of what we believe and what we do. In yesterday’s gospel, Jesus responds to a scholar of the Jewish law that the greatest commandments are, “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your mind,” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37,39). There is no doubt that these eleven martyrs, along with all the martyrs who have given witness to the faith, took these commandments so seriously that they took it to their graves.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.