‘I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life.’
This passage comes from the Book of Deuteronomy, and is our Mass' first reading on this day after Ash Wednesday; quite appropriate considering Lent is all about reviewing our choices.
Life is a series of choices and decisions. Some of those decisions are routine: what to eat, what to wear, how to get everything done that needs to get done. Other decisions are far more significant, and can impact us throughout this life and on into the next life.
You have to admire the early Christian martyrs, not only for their courage but also for the defiance, even confidence, with which they faced the choice to die for their faith rather to give in to things they knew were wrong.
The bishop Polycarp, whom the church honors today, had been a Christian his whole life, but for some reason the Romans waited until he was 86 years old – an unheard-of age back then – to hunt him down.
He refused to flee, and when hauled before a Roman official, engaged him in lively debate. When threatened with being burned at the stake – his eventual fate – he retorted that while the fires of martyrdom last only awhile, the fires of judgment never go out!
Polycarp and other martyrs offer the example of those who reckoned their eternal fate more important than their earthly one, and thus made the decision to choose life – eternal life.
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