The Holy Spirit Of Witness And Division Series

Thursday of the 29th Week in Course 2018

The phrase, “fire that Our Lord came to cast down upon the earth” is reminiscent of an encounter Jesus had in his earthly life with James and John, sons of Zebedee. Some town had refused hospitality to Jesus and the disciples, so those two asked Jesus for permission to pray that fire come down and destroy the town. Jesus, of course, refused. He never condoned violent vengeance, even from the cross. He preached forgiveness and prayer for our enemies.

No, the fire He wants to consume the earth is the fire of the Holy Spirit. He prays for the grace of conversion, which is brought by the Third Person of the Trinity. That is the Spirit that inflamed Jesus and, after Pentecost, all the apostles. That is the Spirit that at Christ’s Incarnation, filled and impregnated the Blessed Virgin Mary. That’s the Holy Spirit we should pray for every day, as the Archbishop does, Ven, Holy Spirit, ven.

The Spirit empowers, but the Spirit also divides. Because the Holy Spirit causes us to change our lives, and to summon our family and friends to the Christian way of life, conflict often emerges in relationships. That can come from little divisions that are magnified after one of the partners believes the Gospel, or from unrepented bad habits that one of the partners doesn’t want to give up. After all, hostility between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and all these other hostilities, are known even without one of them converting to Catholicism.

Remember, Our Lord is not looking for half-hearted disciples. He wants us to be “filled with all the fulness of God” as St. Paul prays in his letter to the Ephesians. There is no room in that equation for any emptiness, any hatred, or even any fear.

Our saints today are early Christian martyrs, Saints Chrysanthus, Daria, and their companions. The martyrology has some historical inaccuracies. It positions their witness and death in the reign of Emperor Numerian, at Rome. But his brother, Carinus, was co-emperor in Rome; Numerian never left the eastern empire. At any rate, the dating of their martyrdom is fixed at the end of the third century, just before the accession of the infamous Diocletian, who led the worst of the anti-Christian persecutions.

The witness of Chrysantus and Daria was a witness of two converts. “Chrysanthus, a new convert, refused his father's attempts to get him married, finally married Daria, a Greek and a priestess of Minerva. [He] converted her, and convinced her to live with him in [chaste celibacy]. When they converted a number of Romans, Chrysanthus was denounced as a Christian to Claudius, the tribune. Chrysanthus' attitude under torture so impressed Claudius that he and his wife, Hilaria, two sons, and seventy of his soldiers became Christians, whereupon the Emperor had them all killed.”

Daria, now a widow, was sent to a brothel as punishment, but escaped. This seems to have been a frequently used degradation of Christian virgins, for that same story is used of other virgin martyrs. She miraculously escaped violation, was condemned to death and murdered by stoning and possibly by being buried alive. “When several followers of Daria and Chrysanthus were found praying at their crypt, among them Diodorus, a priest, and Marianus, a deacon, they were all entombed alive.” That’s why all of them are celebrated on one day.

The Holy Spirit is always alive in the Church, especially visible in His effects during times of persecution. We are in such a period today, assailed from within and from without. So we should daily invoke the Holy Spirit and the intercession of these martyr saints. So, together, let’s do that now. Saints Chrysantus and Daria and all their companions, pray for us.