“There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Today the universal Church honors the North American martyrs…..Six Jesuit Priests and two laymen, who gave their lives witnessing to the gospel in New York State to the Iroquois Indians…..Fr Isaac Jaques was one of those priests who had his fingers chopped off and after being beaten on his first trip to North America returned to France only to go back to New York State to serve the people again…..He knew he would be killed but went back anyway…..Before the Iroquois chopped off this fingers this is what Fr Issac wrote………..”When I ascended the scaffold, I exclaimed in my heart: For we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men for Christ’s sake”…..To the world what Fr Issac did was crazy….He sacrificed himself to spread the gospel….Most of us who are Baptized will not be called to be physically tortured and killed in cold blood for the faith…However, there is such a thing in religious circles called “white martyrdom”…This is where we die to ourself without the drawing of blood…This is the path to heaven for most people…We are all called to die to ourself…..Very few people have to give their physical blood for Christ…However, if we want to enter eternal life…We must “die to ourself”…That is the “narrow road” Jesus speaks of…There is no other road that leads to heaven

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”

One of the first words out of a child’s mouth is “mine”….From birth we want things….Learning to share is not something we learn from books…Sharing is learned in the home and it must be experienced in real time…..The same goes for giving ones self away….Parents do this in real time….They sacrifice for their children….The greater the sacrifice, the more children see with their own two eyes what it means and that witness will resonate with them for the rest of their life….Trust me when I tell you this….There are no selfish people in heaven…..And learning to be a selfless person takes a life time….But this is the essence of what it means to be Catholic….Giving yourself away!…..In order to accomplish this, we need God’s grace…Its not natural to “give yourself away”…But through daily prayer, fasting and living a Sacramental life…Jesus himself and his Holy Mother Mary show us how we are to do it…..When we live such a life, we in turn empty ourself and God then can fill us with his Holy Spirit…That is the “blue print” we all must follow in whatever state of life we are in as Baptized Catholics…Whether single, married or as a consecrated religious priest, brother or nun….The “blue print” is the same…We must strive to “give our self away”….Striving to become selfless…So God can fill us with his Holy Spirit……This is the “narrow road” that Jesus himself speaks of in the Scripture….Don’t let anyone fool you…There is no such thing as the “prosperity gospel”…..All of the baptized are to “walk the road” of selfless service and in doing this we find our true self and in turn will arrive safely in heaven

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”

Getting back to Fr Isaac Jaques, the French Jesuit who gave his life to spread the gospel in New York State to the Iroquois Indians…..Fr Issac “gave himself away” in a very radical way…By shedding his blood…Most probably that will not be the way we are to live or die…However, we are ALL called to live selflessly…That is how we find the “pearl of great price”….We do this by serving our community, our family and by sharing the gifts, which were given to us…..God will help us in this process if we cooperate with him…He will “open our eyes, our hands and our hearts wide” to the needs of others and He will provide the needed grace to help us along that “narrow road” to heaven

“For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”