Listen to the teachers in the School of Martyrdom who imitate perfectly for us Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.”
St. Isaac Jogues: "My confidence is placed in God who does not need our help for accomplishing his designs. Our single endeavor should be to give ourselves to the work and to be faithful to him, and not to spoil his work by our shortcomings" (from a letter to a Jesuit friend in France, September 12, 1646. He was martyred a month later.) St. Isaac’s entire mission in the New World was one of deprivation, persecution, and suffering. He is a valuable teacher in the school of martyrs.
St. Bruno Serunkuma: “A fountain fed from many springs will never dry up. When we are gone, others will rise in our place.” One of the 22 martyrs of Uganda killed between 1885and 1887. St. Bruno spoke prophetically. In 1887 there were only a thousand catechumens in Uganda. By 1964, the number of Catholics had risen to two million. The blood of martyrs truly is the seedbed of the faith. Many of the martyrs were young pages killed because they refused the depraved advances of the king. These martyrs heroically witness to our own depraved age. Martyrs of Uganda, pray for us.
St. Edith Stein (Sr.Teresa Benedicta of the Cross): “The nation…doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.”… ”My longing for truth was a single prayer.” “If anyone comes to me, I want to lead them to Him.” Do these short quotes not summarize the life and goal of the martyr — to seek truth, to witness to the world, and to bring souls to God? St. Edith left her convent to protect her sisters from the Nazis writing to the prioress: “Dear Mother, I beg you, give me permission to offer myself to the Heart of Jesus as a [sacrifice] of atonement for the sake of true peace, that the Antichrist’s sway may be broken.” God accepted her sacrifice and she died in a crowded gas chamber at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.