[00:00] Today we heard, through the first reading, what happened to the sons of Maccabee. They were brought before yet another powerful king, a great in the eyes of the world, and tried to force them to give up their faith. But as those who have professed their faith before God and have been given the strength

[00:35] through Him, they refused, even though they were confronting many tortures. And it's amazing how these people are so inventive in the ways in which they torture and they try to get those who are godly to give up their faith. They brought them before their mother, and one by one, trying to get the mother to convince them to give up their faith. But the mother stood strong and encouraged them and told them, "Don't you dare give up

[01:10] the faith." You know, I'm paraphrasing, but she basically scolded them and said, you know, to confront their sufferings and what they were going to go through. She herself was tortured as well. We see through the ages how this happens, where we have people who embrace evil and are pitted against those who embrace the good. This morning, the second psalm from the morning prayer explains this in a way, or at least

[01:45] describes it, that between the malice of sinners and God's goodness, no follower of mine wanders in the dark. He shall have the light of life. Sin speaks to the sinner. In the depths of his heart, there is no fear of God before his eyes. He so flatters himself in his mind that he knows not his guilt. In his mouth are mischief and deceit.

[02:18] All wisdom is gone. He plots the defeat of goodness as he lies on his bed. He has set his foot on evil ways. He clings to what is evil. But Your love, Lord, reaches to heaven, Your truth to the skies. Your justice is like God's mountain. Your judgments like the deep. To both man and beast, You give protection. Oh, Lord, how precious is Your love. My God, the sons of men find refuge in the shelter of Your wings.

[02:49] And as it says in the psalm, our soul has been rescued like a bird from the fowler's snare. And this is the important aspect of the feast that we, or the memorial that we celebrate today, St. Charles Lwanga and his companion martyrs. There were over 22 of them. And in 1879 in Uganda, there was a French priest, Simon of Lordal.

[03:24] He went and preached to the nation that was living in debauchery and committing many sins and, you know, disgraces really. And he went there and preached to them. You know, and he had some, like, I guess you could say success. But they were so taken up with sorcery and their old ways that it was hard to make any inroads.

[03:55] The king was basically taking young boys and doing whatever he wanted to do with them. It was part of their culture, which wouldn't even be considered a culture. They spent their time in raiding other villages, pillaging, stealing, raping, you know, whatever else they decided to do. And many times when they would kill, they would torture the ones that they were killing. So it wasn't just something that they were doing to defend their village.

[04:28] They were living a life of complete sin against their Creator. Even though they did not know the revelation, they knew by nature, as St. Paul said, they have no excuse because the law of God is written on our hearts. But eventually, this missionary was able to convert some influential people that were near the king. One of them was the head page. His name was Joseph.

[05:00] And King Mutesa eventually came around and started having more missionaries come, which increased the Christians. And then he died. All of a sudden, his son, who was 18 years old, ascended to the throne. And his name was King Mwanga. And from there, things took a turn because he had someone close to him who was an advisor who hated the Christians, couldn't stand them.

[05:36] And he was always whispering in the king's ear and trying to spread rumors, which eventually worked. And the king started ordering execution of these Christians. Joseph, he was the lead page. He was the first martyr. Then there was a young boy of 12 years old who was the second martyr. Joseph told the king that he would pray for him, but if he did not repent, that he would return on the day of judgment and be the one who testifies against him.

[06:13] Many of these young men that were surrounding the king, because he had a whole bunch of them surrounding him, were protected by Joseph. And as soon as Joseph died, then Charles Lwanga, who was considered one of the most influential people in the kingdom, became the lead page who took care of these young men. And he also protected them from the king.

[06:44] But eventually, the king, King Mwanga, 18 years old, he tried to do things that obviously were impure with these boys. And he was confronted by some of the Christians, which ended up enraging him. And he pierced them through with a spear through the neck, left them to die overnight. There were many different things he did, but eventually he started a whole, I guess you say, genocide of the Christians.

[07:21] And wherever he gathered them together and he walked them for 17 miles, every Christian along the way, he would just grab and put in this procession. And whenever they would get to a crossroads, he would kill one of the Christians and torture them, cutting their hands off, tying off their hands to keep the arteries closed, let them be tortured overnight. And then he would do things like peeling the skin off them, all these things, terrible things.

[07:56] But it shows us how much God gives strength to those who are faithful, because not only did they accept their torments, but they did so willingly. And they even, some of the Christians would come out of the bush to be martyred and present themselves because they had heard the king had sorted them. You know, I asked those who pray, go to this side, those who don't pray, go here. And he tried to make them renounce their faith. And they were constantly given a chance to renounce their faith.

[08:29] And you can imagine after seeing all the torture and everything that these young men would be afraid, but they weren't. They embraced their sufferings. They were filled with the Spirit of God and they would not have it any other way. St. Charles, there was another thing that they would do. They would torture them in front of everybody else so that as the time wore on, it became psychologically traumatic to be seeing these people being tortured, hoping that more would turn away from God.

[09:06] But none of them did. St. Charles, even when it was given him a chance to flee, he asked if he could help make his bed of sticks that he was going to be burned on. So ultimately, he was burned to death. But he didn't make a sound. He just cried out to God saying, "God, help me. God, help me." And they said, another young man who was 14, 15 years old said, "You can kill my body, but you cannot kill my soul."

[09:40] The blood of the martyrs is a seedbed of Christianity. And after that, the Christian faith took off. In fact, there were people that were watching them, those being tortured and being martyred, who immediately decided to, because they didn't want to lose out, they decided to be baptized in hopes that they too would be martyred. So they had this faith and eventually over two million converted and came to the faith in Uganda.

[10:13] But we see how there is this malice of sinners, but there's also where this malice is God's grace abounds, that He will not leave anyone in the dark, but He will give them the light of life. And if we ourselves want to be true Christians, we must be ready to suffer anything for the sake of Christ, for the sake of truth, the way and the life. And we will be given that strength at the time. We don't have to worry.

[10:44] You know, we may think of all those things, you know, how many of you would, if we knew today that there was people coming here to do the same thing to us, would we flee? Would we run? Would we try to hide? You know, in some cases, it might be prudent to do so, depending because of the circumstances. However, would we, if we are given a chance and we are captured and we are given chance after chance over days, over 17 mile march after seeing others tortured, what would we do the next chance that we have?

[11:19] Would we be willing to voluntarily present ourselves to those who were doing the martyrdom? I hope so, but we can't know for sure. That's why in our weakness, we pray to God that He gives us the strength that we that we be worthy to die a martyr's death. But if it's not His will that we die a martyr's death, at least to live a martyr's life. And we have to think to ourselves, it's not far away from us.

[11:52] There's people who are that evil that are around us. We don't realize it yet. They haven't been given the platform. But I remember when I was younger, when I was traveling on a bus one day and I saw that evil, there was a young man who was constantly bullying everybody else. I mean, the things that he would do are incredible. And, you know, no one was spared. You know, I even stood up to him one time and he slapped me in the face because I refused to leave his seat on the bus.

[12:24] And and he hit me, but I didn't move. But I was just like, oh, my goodness, he's serious about what he's doing. Then then to show how in the psalm, it says that sin speaks to the sinner in the depths of his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes. He knows not his guilt, his mouth or mischief and deceit, all wisdom is gone. I remember sitting there and we stopped at a light and this guy pulls the window down and starts yelling at this kid that was, you know, on the on the street.

[13:01] And the kid just put his head down and turned and walked away. And so this guy, he puts up the window and he sits down and I thought, oh, he's going to be like, sorry, because the kid sort of, you know, walked away sad. And he said, he goes, you know what? When they start talking back to you, you know, that's one thing he said. But if they if they put their head down and walk away, he goes, you know, you really got them.

[13:32] And I just thought I thought to myself, wow, this and you can see the reason why I say this is because, you know, there are many things that he did. I forgive him, but I leave the judgment to God. I found out that he tried to commit suicide a couple of years ago and I leave his judgment up to God. The those who lose all wisdom in their embracing of wickedness, they they also can be subjects of God's mercy, but they have to repent.

[14:13] Otherwise, just like Joseph, who is the martyr, said that I will be there to witness against you on the day of judgment. There is other times as well when I one time I tried to keep this person from giving drugs to somebody. And I realized at different times in my life that there's evil and people in some people's lives, you know, and I was preventing this person. And also this this guy turned on me and grabbed me by the throat.

[14:48] And he looked at he looked at me. He said, he said, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to do? I said, I'm trying to stop you from from hurting this other person. And, you know, luckily, my my cousins were there. They came and helped out. But there was two times that I like realized, even when I was younger, how evil people can be. And the reason why I bring this up is because we think, you know, because we live in a Christian society, but it's not around us that it can't happen to us like St. Charles.

[15:22] But it can in a split second. These people can turn and what they've chosen all their life and they've been tempered by society can come out. So let us be ready. Let us be willing to suffer whatever may come our way in the profession of our faith. We may not be confronted with it now, but we should be ready. And just know that the worst they can do is kill us, kill the body, but they cannot kill the soul.

[15:58] And just as these martyrs from the past went directly to heaven and they rejoiced and even called out to each other, we will see each other soon in heaven. So we too, if even if we are not given the grace of a martyr, bloody martyrdom, then we can rejoice the same because we ask our Lord to grant us to live a martyr's life.