34th Week, Monday, Nov 24; St Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions
Daniel 1:1-6, 8-20 / Luke 21:1-4
Daniel remains faithful; God rewarded Daniel.
Alan Paton's book Ok, But Your Land Is Beautiful contains a thought-provoking conversation. It's between a black man and a white man. They've put their lives on the line for racial unity and justice in South Africa. When the white man reminds the black man that they might wind up with some body scars, the black man says: "Well, I look at it this way. When I get up there, the great judge will say, 'Where are your scars? And if I say I haven't any, he will ask, "Were there no causes worthy of getting scars?
The example of this black man and the example of Daniel in today's reading are like lights in the night pointing the way.
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Recall a time when we got scars for standing up for something we believed in. "No pain, no palm; no thorns, no glory; no cross, no crown." Wiliam Pen
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To strengthen the faith of the persecuted Jews at the time of the Maccabees, the author of the Book of Daniel tells the edifying story of four young Jews who take the risk of remaining loyal to God’s law even at the pagan king’s court. They draw both God’s protection and their wisdom from this fidelity.
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Faith is not a passive or inert aspect of our lives. Faith responds visibly to something that might be expected to produce manifestations of an emotion or feeling. Having faith would also mean participating readily or actively in the situations around us so as to reveal the presence of God in those situations. In that sense, if we have faith then we would not be so easily influenced, acted upon, or affected by some external influence, and just being swept along with the flow.
In the 1st reading, the four young men faced a dilemma. They were exiled in a foreign land but were selected to be trained for the service of the king. They were given food from the king's royal table, but it was food that had been first offered to idols and hence for the Jews to eat that food would be to defile themselves. As exiles in a foreign land, going against orders would mean certain death. But their faith in God made a way for them and as it turned out, God blessed them for their faithfulness.
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In the gospel, that poverty-stricken widow put in two small coins into the treasury, and as Jesus commented, she put in all she had to live on. In both cases of the four young men and the poverty-stricken widow, they could have just submitted to their thinking and taken the easy and sensible way out of a difficult situation. But their faith made them face the difficult situation and in doing so the presence of God was manifested in those situations and circumstances.
The world needs to experience the presence of God. That is why God chose us and gave us the faith. By our faith may we let God be present and may we call upon His blessings for our world.
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Seeing the large offering made by the rich and the two small coins offered by the widow, Jesus comes to a radical but true conclusion: “This poor widow has put in more than any of them.” He indicates the reason: “For these have all put in money they could spare, but she in her poverty has put in all she had to live on.” In offering all that she had, the widow revealed her generosity. In offering all she had, she showed herself richer, because wealth is not determined by the quantity of one’s possessions but by the quality of one’s heart. In offering all that she had, she showed her total, childlike trust in God despite the resulting financial insecurity. In offering all that she had, she revealed that the value of a gift does not depend upon its size, but on how much it cost the giver. In offering all that she had, she showed that there is more joy in giving than in receiving.
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The widow goes beyond the law. In her generosity, she does not only give all she has, she has only what she has given. People who are poor often know well how to give because they know what it means to be poor and dependent; they know how to live in the hands of God.
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Prayer
Lord our God, generous Father, simple people put us often to shame by their total generosity and straightforward loyalty. Make us realize Lord, that like your Son, the real poor of heart often make us understand who you are: a God who gives himself. Grant us too, this kind of generous love and loyalty through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
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Saint Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions
November 24
Andrew Dung-Lac, a Catholic convert ordained to the priesthood, was one of 117 people martyred in Vietnam between 1820 and 1862. Members of the companions group gave their lives for Christ in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and received beatification during four different occasions between 1900 and 1951. All were canonized during the papacy of Saint John Paul II.
Christianity came to Vietnam through the Portuguese. Jesuits opened the first permanent mission at Da Nang in 1615. They ministered to Japanese Catholics who had been driven from Japan.
Severe persecutions were launched at least three times in the 19th century. During the six decades after 1820, between 100,000 and 300,000 Catholics were killed or subjected to great hardship. Foreign missionaries martyred in the first wave included priests of the Paris Mission Society, and Spanish Dominican priests and tertiaries.
In 1832, Emperor Minh-Mang banned all foreign missionaries and tried to make all Vietnamese deny their faith by trampling on a crucifix. Like the priest-holes in Ireland during English persecution, many hiding places were offered in the homes of the faithful.
Persecution broke out again in 1847 when the emperor suspected foreign missionaries and Vietnamese Christians of sympathizing with a rebellion led by of one of his sons.
The last of the martyrs were 17 laypersons, one of them a 9-year-old, executed in 1862. That year a treaty with France guaranteed religious freedom to Catholics, but it did not stop all persecution.
By 1954, there were over a million Catholics—about seven percent of the population—in the north. Buddhists represented about 60 percent. Persistent persecution forced some 670,000 Catholics to abandon lands, homes and possessions and flee to the south. In 1964, there were still 833,000 Catholics in the north, but many were in prison. In the south, Catholics were enjoying the first decade of religious freedom in centuries, their numbers swelled by refugees.
During the Vietnamese war, Catholics again suffered in the north, and again moved to the south in great numbers. Now reunited, the entire country is under Communist rule.
