Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

When I was a kid at religious ed. classes, I remember talking about the early martyrs.  They had to choose between worshiping pagan gods or be put to death.  A classmate asked why they didn't just fake it: do the actions of the pagan worship to please the Romans, but keep believing in our real God and just pray to Him in secret.  God would know that we wanted to remain faithful to Him.  Our teacher explained that would actually be a problem because it could lead to scandal.  If others saw one of us worship a false god, they might think it is okay to do that since this faithful Catholic did it.  Or it might sadden them to see a Catholic doing it and that might lead them to just giving up.  Others wouldn't know you're just "faking it" and might get the wrong impression.  That is what Eleazar is worried about when his friends try to get him to fake out the authorities by substituting the pork with a more kosher meat.  Others may be scandalized. 

We need to be mindful of this in our modern day as well.  Our society tries to get us to go along with them in what is popular and feels good.  These feel good things don't always match with what the Church teaches us; what the Bible teaches us.  This includes Catholic thought on life, morality, social justice, marriage, politics, and others.  We might be tempted to just pretend that we go along with it in public (with our friends perhaps) just to fit in with the crowd, but still talk to God about how we believe Him and talk to our Church friends that we follow the Church.  But it doesn't work that way and we may lead others astray by doing such things.  Stay true to what we know God has taught us.  We may even help others to be closer to God through the courage we will show.