4 December 2019
Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
December first fell on a Sunday this year, so the feast of St. Edmund Campion did not get the attention the day deserves. Edmund Campion was martyred for the faith during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, one of the many Catholics who suffered for their beliefs. Martyrdom is a hard subject to discuss, especially today. Modern sensibility dictates that you don’t question another’s beliefs or practices and that you certainly don’t kill them or persecute them about these beliefs, except of course if live in a country where people are persecuted for their religious beliefs and are killed for them. Intolerance has always rankled our modern sensibilities, yet intolerance seems stronger than ever. Edmund Campion has always stood as one of the great Jesuit martyrs. His articulate defense of the faith along side of his recognition of religious multiplicity and the need to reconcile this multiplicity by means of reasoned discourse stands as a model for us today. What made Campion such a formidable foe was the combination of his faith with the ability to express that faith. In this lies a challenge for all of us to not only to have faith but to hone our skills in expressing the faith in a clear and reasonable fashion. One warning: this reasoned expression of the truth in the face of adversity usually meets with further adversity, as any martyr will tell you. Here we may recall a prayer composed by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr when a difficult situation stares us in the face.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.