As we continue our joy in the victory of our Lord over death, we rejoice also at the courage of those who would give up their lives out of love for him and boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel. Before we say something on St Stanislaus of Poland, therefore, we will look at the Word of God which is being presented to us this day in the second week of Easter and how his wonderful life and service to God’s people can be seen in these passages from Scripture.
In today’s first reading, we continue our reflection on the book of Acts, and specifically chapter 5, verses 27-33, where we see that the apostles were re-arrested after having been miraculously released from jail, as they persevered in their bold preaching of the name of Jesus. They were brought back in before the Jewish judicial authorities, the 71-member Sanhedrin.
They were accused of two things: First, continuing to preach in “this name” (Jesus’ persecutors repulsed even by his name, like a demon during exorcism), and they preached the name of Jesus all over Jerusalem, even though they had been strictly forbidden to do so. The second accusation was that the apostles were prescribing culpability to the same Sanhedrin, and the Jewish leadership for Jesus’ death in front of whom they had to stand trial once again. Now, we humbly keep in mind, that these were those who were in fact immediately culpable, however, as the apostles’ message began to grow and develop, we are able to see that all of us are culpable for Jesus’ death, for he was atoning for the sins of all. Had we not sinned, he would not have laid down his life as a ransom for us.
This is why all of us at mass will begin by recognizing ourselves as sinners; “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa” and striking our breast we beg forgiveness and the tender mercy of our Father, and this is something the majority of the Sanhedrin would have found repulsive. We say, “the majority,” and not all of them, for there were some, like Joseph of Arimethea and Nichodemus who were friendlies to Jesus, and who tried their best to understand his message which was very hard for established religion to accept while they even defended him during his trial on Holy Thursday evening.
The apostles remain bold in the face of the accusations levelled against them (which were true), and once again repeat their own verdicts to their judges:
“We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.”
Their accusers sentenced are now accordingly punished, but their punishment is having to hear that the true messiah they killed, is now in glory as Ruler and Saviour:
“God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Saviour that he might give repentance to Israel [i.e. all their fellow-Jews] and forgiveness of sins.”
Up until then, Moses was the big go-to prophet on all things judicial, and the title the apostles have given to Jesus (Leader and Saviour) corresponds to ‘Prince and Redeemer’ which was a designation reserved to Moses, as a prefiguring of Christ, by Stephen in his address to the Sanhedrin, where he said that Moses too was rejected by his people (Acts 7:35). The Sanhedrin would have been infuriated by this.
The apostles were merely affirming what they themselves had witnessed. Had they been involved in some made-up religion or cult and wanted to save their lives, they would have testified otherwise, but they were emboldened by the “…Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
It reminds one of Thomas More in England who refused to recognise King Henry VIII as head of the Church in England. “The king’s good servant but God’s first,” he said. For refusing to compromise his faith and integrity, he lost his life. For Thomas More, too, there was no other choice.
And there have been many others like him down the ages, including Saint Stanislaus whom we celebrate today and was martyred 500 years before Saint Thomas More, but in a different country, in Poland. Stanislaus was ultimately silenced by a King who chose evil over virtue, and the Polish Saint John Paul II, would ultimately name Stanislaus as the patron saint of Moral Order. There’s the beautiful and powerful testimony which sees a man by the name of Piotr (Peter) bequeathing property to the then Bishop Stanislaus for the aid of the parish community. Upon the man’s death, his family contested the fact that he had left this property to the Church. Stanislaus asked the King and the royal judiciaries three days to have Peter himself come and testify. For this he was mocked and laughed at, and to continue their joy at hurling insults at the good bishop, they actually granted him three days. The bishop prayed and fasted intensely for three days and on the third day, wearing his decorated Bishop’s attire, went out in formal procession to the grave of Peter and by command of God told him to rise from death, and the man awoke, walked out of the cemetery with him and went straight to the royal courthouse to testify to the truth, while disowning his evil sons at the same time. The king and the authorities had to rule in favour of the Bishop they had been roundly mocking. Upon a more serious dispute with the King, the good Bishop was killed by the former himself, after his royal guards would not dare lay a hand on the holy man of God. The king himself is said to have butchered the Bishop having interrupted his offering of Holy Mass. His dismembered body parts thrown into a pool in the Cathedral’s backyard, miraculously realigned themselves and united to form his body anew, while four marvellous eagles descended from the skies and stood guard around the body until it was retrieved with dignity.
We see that vehemence against the name of Christ has been present everywhere throughout the ages, in fulfilment of what the Lord himself said, that “You will be hated by everyone because of me” Matthew 10:22. Many Christians today languish in jails and camps and are even martyred for no other reason.
We can almost intuit the justice of Jesus’ words in today’s gospel, that, “Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, but anyone who refuses to believe in the Son will never see life: the anger of God stays on him.” What’s interesting is that Jesus says that the reward or punishments begin immediately, not just at our particular or universal judgements, but now. Whoever believes, HAS eternal life, not, will have eternal life. Of course elsewhere, Jesus speaks about the future character of rewards or punishments according to what each person merits, but here he is indicating that the beatitude or the condemnation can be felt and lived even now, while we are still striving for our eternal reward. And at the end of the day, when our time comes, will not our reward be Jesus himself? For this reason our Lord in truth told Saint Dismas that good thief who was crucified along side him and who repented right at the end, having defended the Lord with whom he was dying; “Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” Luke 23:43. “With me”, because to be with Jesus IS paradise.
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Beautiful homily. I never knew the story of St. Stanislaw. How remarkable and what a testament of persevering faith.
If the Apostles had not been bold and continued to preach The Gospel we would not know Jesus today. None of them would have died for a fake story. I thank God for all the martyrs because today I can say, “I believe.”