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Gospel Reading for November 26, 2025 – Luke 21: 12-19
SECURE PLACE
Jesus said to the crowd: “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony. Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute. You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”
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In the records of the 2004 Martyrologium Romanum, there are 14,154 individuals who are named martyrs. This does not include the many martyrs who died for the Faith but are not on record. According to reports, 7,000 Nigerian Christians had been killed in 2025 and still counting. Just late this month, a parish priest was abducted and was later found to have been brutally murdered. Although it is part of religious violence affecting both Christians and Muslims since 1953, the fact that they chose to be priests and to be Christians despite the very great risk of being one, is tantamount to being martyrs who died for the Faith.
What then did Jesus mean by: “You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance you will secure your lives”?
In Matthew 10: 28, Jesus states: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Therefore, the life that Jesus speaks of is not the life we have on earth but ETERNAL LIFE. Terrorists and persecutors may have been successful snuffing out the temporary life of martyrs, but their success is limited to the earth. They have even paved the way for the martyrs to have a SECURE PLACE in heaven!
Lord, everytime we feel lazy to participate in Sunday Mass, may we be reminded of the difficulty of being a Christian in other parts of the world!
