Читать книгу Before We Say Goodbye: Preparing for a Good Death - Ray Simpson - Страница 28

Three kinds of death were once sought after in a popular movement. These were red, white and blue deaths.

Red was the colour of the martyrs, people of great spirit who allowed their blood to be shed rather than deny what they knew to be right and true. Stories of their noble deaths during the early centuries of the persecution of Christians stirred many people to rededicate their lives.

When the period of persecution passed, these rededicated people asked themselves, ‘Is it possible to be a martyr in a different way?’ They may have read what Jerome wrote to a young woman whose widowed mother had given away all her possessions and entered a convent:

Your mother has been crowned because of her long martyrdom. It is not only the shedding of blood which is the mark of a true witness, but the service of a dedicated heart is a daily martyrdom. The first is wreathed with a crown of roses and violets, the second of lilies.

They also read in The Life of St Martin, the first person to be officially declared a saint who had not been killed for his faith:

He achieved martyrdom without blood. For of what human sorrows did he not, for the hope of eternity, endure the pain – in hunger, in night watchings … in the persecutions of the wicked, in care for the sick, in anxiety for those in peril. ¹²

They therefore decided to call those who gave up home and possessions in order to serve God and others ‘white martyrs’.

The Irish came up with a third idea, that of ‘blue martyrs’ (blue being the colour of death), linked to extended penance or pilgrimage, going into exile from home comforts for the love of God.

The twentieth century had more red martyrs than any other century. Perhaps the twenty-first century will have more white and blue martyrs than any previous century? We can each be a martyr by laying aside everything that comes between us and God, or by laying down our life for our neighbour.

It is certain that, as we practise laying down our lives in any form, we shall be better able to lay them down at the curtain call.