Vigils Reading – Christ the King

IN THE STEPS

OF THE MARTYRS

From a homily by St Augustine

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Let us not imagine that in keeping the feast of the Martyrs with great

solemnity, we are benefiting them. They who are in the joy of heaven with the

angels have no need of our honors and if they rejoice with us, it is at being

imitated, not at being honored. However, though this veneration does not

benefit them, it is useful for us: but to honor them without imitating them,

would be lying flattery. If then these solemnities have been instituted in the

Church of Christ, it is only to unite all the members of Christ and to enlist them

as followers in the steps of the martyrs of Christ. Such is the fruit of today’s

festival; there is no question of any other.

When, in fact, we propose God himself as our example, human weakness

readily answers that it is above its power to imitate him to whom it cannot be

compared. In that case Jesus Christ our Lord will be proposed to it as model

who, being God, clothed himself in mortal flesh in order the better to persuade

us also clothed in this same flesh, adding word to example; Christ, it is written,

“suffered for our sake, and left you his own example; you were to follow in his

footsteps”.

Yet will not frail humanity reply again: “What comparison is there

between me and Christ? He was one of us, but he was God. He took flesh, but

without ceasing to be the Word, assuming a new nature without losing that

which was proper to him. For, as St Paul says, “God was in Christ, reconciling

the world to himself”. Once again, how can I compare myself with Christ?

Therefore, to remove all pretext from the faithlessness of the weak, the

Martyrs have made a broad way for us. It was necessary that the foundation

should be solid as stone, in order that our footsteps should be steady: they have

cemented it with their blood and their testimony, and finally, reckoning nothing

of their bodies, they have thrown them under the feet of Christ as he advances to

the conquest of the heathen, as, On Palm Sunday, the people threw their

garments under the feet of the ass on which he rode. Who would be ashamed to

say: “I am inferior to God”? I grant you are very much so. “I am inferior to

Christ”? Yes, certainly, and even to his humanity.

But Peter was what you are; so was Paul, and the Apostles and Prophets

were all what you are yourself. If the example of our Lord alarms you, at least

imitate those who are like you his servant. They go before you in dense crowds:

no more excuse for your lukewarmness. Will you say to me again: “I am very far

from Peter and Paul”? Are you then also far from truth? There where the

illiterate receive the crown, there is no excuse for vanity. Are you less than

children?

Watch then…that in celebrating the sufferings of the Martyrs you fill

yourself with the desire to imitate them. They knew that they must choose a

good cause if their work was to be made fruitful. They remembered that not

only had our Lord said: “Blessed are the persecuted”, but: “blessed are those

who suffer persecution in the cause of right”. Choose yourselves the good cause,

and do not be disturbed by what you suffer in so doing.