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It is
obvious that we live in very sinful times and are bombarded with encountering
people with no knowledge or with antipathy of the teachings of Christ and
His Church. Now, during my social interaction with others, when am
I bound, under pain of mortal sin, to admonish sinners, correct them, and
tell them that this or that is wrong in the eyes of God? I don’t know
if I am just a wimp with no thick skin when I fail to correct them and tell
them the truth or not. Say for instance at my . . .
job, my boss or co-worker takes the name of the Lord in vain habitually or
speaks of impure stories as if they are innocent and inconsequential. Am
I bound, under pain of mortal sin, to break into the conversation and correct
them or not? It is frustrating to not know what to do—I am almost totally
pre-occupied with such moral questions . . . Should
I give in to human respect for the time being and not say anything and go
“along with the crowd” but at the same time make a mental note
to speak up at a more appropriate time? Or am I bound to speak up right at
that moment without hesitation no matter how inconvenient or awkward? Also,
can I speak of stories in which I was drunk at the time or stoned without
offending God—though the story is centering around what happened and
not the sinful state of mind I put myself in? (By the way is it a mortal
sin to laugh at conversation or jokes about drunkenness or
impurity?) . . . Am I a victim of erroneous conscience
or a weakling who has failed to trust in Jesus?
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 artyr. What comes to mind when
you think of that word? Early Christians killed under Roman persecution?
Missionaries put to a brutal death in hostile, pagan countries? Yet what
about today? Where have all the martyrs gone?
Well, it is true that in the
modern world many persons would not sacrifice even their TVs, let alone their
lives, for the sake of Christ.
Still, even though many so-called
Christians today have compromised the true faith,
some genuine Christians continue to defend the faith. The word martyr
is actually the Greek word for witness, and so anyone who witnesses
the faith is technically a martyr. Moreover, you do not have to be killed
to be a martyr; you can be martyred by love. That is, you can, like Saint
Paul, so love Christ that you lose an interest in everything but the message
of holy love that Christ brought us.
Elements of
Witnessing the Faith
Witnessing the faith is really
a simple process; that is, it does not depend on intellectual and philosophical
sophistication. It requires only that you live a life of true love in every
moment, as Christ told us to live. Because assaults from the anti-Christian
world around us can tempt us to defile love, the two
essential elements of our witnessing the faith can be expressed according
to what we refuse to do, regardless of what anyone does to
us:
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Refuse to compromise
the true faith. |
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Refuse to
hate anyone. |
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Martyrs proclaim
their refusal to hate, for in blessing even those who persecute them they
keep open the hope that the persecutors may repent their mistakes. And this
explains why no one who is killed for his or her political opposition to
rivals, who is killed in the act of killing others, or who commits
suicide—by itself or in the course of killing others—can be a martyr,
for all these acts psychologically foreclose all possibility of forgiveness
and healing. |
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Preaching, Teaching,
and Witnessing
If you have been ordained to
the priesthood or diaconate and have the right to preach, or, if you have
some other teaching ministry (e.g., teacher, catechist, counselor), then
you can use your intellectual skills to tell others how to live the
Christian faith.
Also, every Christian has an
obligation—without fear of being
judgmental—to point out errors to others
to whom he or she has some acquaintance. That is, it wouldn’t be advisable
to walk up to strangers on the street and tell them that their tattoos are
a defilement of the body and a grave offense to
God. But you could say this to a friend.
Witnessing the faith is
another Christian responsibility. It’s something different from teaching;
to witness the faith you show others, through your own personal example,
how to live the faith.
Witnessing the faith is also
a responsibility that many Christians take too lightly, if they take it at
all.
Nevertheless, every Christian
has taken baptismal vows to renounce Satan, to turn
away from evil and sin, and to turn to Christ in
chaste and holy service. Therefore, every Christian,
in everything he or she does, no matter how trivial or important, has an
obligation to represent the Church to the world in which he or she lives.
That’s a serious responsibility.
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The real battle
of life is between Satan and your soul, not between
you and other persons. Have no doubts that Satan will tempt you through others
in every way he can, to induce you to turn against your
baptismal promises. And God will
allow him to tempt you, as a way of strengthening
and purifying your soul.
So no matter how others bait you, your responsibility is to act always in
total imitation of Christ, as a faithful representative of the Church. If
you fail in this, then others will just sneer, and say, “See? Those
Catholics are all just a bunch of
hypocrites.” |
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But, before you fly into a panic
of scruples, it will help to understand something
about psychology here.
The Psychology
of Responsibility
Consider this fundamental axiom
in psychology: It’s nearly impossible to change the behavior of another
person. Children in dysfunctional families
must confront the hard and tragic truth that nothing they can do themselves
can fix the family—for example, stop their father or mother from being
an alcoholic. Many of these children, having
no way to cope with feelings of intense
helplessness, end up blaming
themselves—and often blaming God—that
they have not been able to stop their father’s or mother’s
irresponsible and self-destructive behavior. And so these poor lost children
grow up to find their lives stained with emotional and interpersonal instability,
a general lack of motivation, and
depression—with unconscious
anger at the core of it all.
So, understanding basic psychology,
all you can do is take responsibility for your own
behavior.
Taking Responsibility
for Your Own Behavior
If a co-worker uses foul language
on the job, then say, “I can’t listen to this kind of talk.”
And walk away. If a friend or family member invites you to watch a movie
(perhaps insisting you watch it, even after you have explained that you
don’t like to watch movies) and a nude scene appears, say, “I
can’t watch this sort of thing.” And stand up and leave the room.
If you’re in a car and someone lights a joint, say, “I can’t
participate in this sort of thing.” Oops . . . what if the car is moving
and the driver refuses to stop? Well, just fling open the door and act like
you are willing to jump out, and the driver will bring the car to a screeching
halt in no time. Then get out.
Remember, in showing to
others what a pure Christian life-style is all
about, your consistent behavior might just influence a few.
After all the uproar dies down,
and if circumstances allow, then you can start to explain your behavior.
Now, in the course of your explaining yourself you might tell stories about
your past sins as illustration. That’s fine. But if you tell the story
just for the sake of the story, you run the risk of leading others into sin,
and that’s scandal (see
below).
Finally, laughing at impure jokes
or conversation does only one thing: it encourages the behavior—and
that, too, amounts to scandal. And if the impurity is about grave matter,
then the scandal becomes mortal
sin.
Needless to say, after you start
witnessing the Gospel as you should, you might not have many
friends left. So listen to what Christ
said:
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Blessed are they
who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom
of Heaven. |
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—Matthew
5-10 |
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What the
Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
2471 Before
Pilate, Christ proclaims that he “has come into the world, to bear witness
to the truth.” The Christian is not to “be ashamed then of testifying
to our Lord.” In situations that require witness to the faith, the Christian
must profess it without equivocation, after the example of St. Paul before
his judges. We must keep “a clear conscience toward God and toward
men.”
2472 The
duty of Christians to take part in the life of the Church impels them to
act as witnesses of the Gospel and of the obligations that flow from
it. This witness is a transmission of the faith in words and deeds. Witness
is an act of justice that establishes the truth or makes it known.
All Christians by
the example of their lives and the witness of their word, wherever they live,
have an obligation to manifest the new man which they have put on in Baptism
and to reveal the power of the Holy Spirit by whom they were strengthened
at Confirmation.
2284 Scandal
is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who
gives scandal becomes his neighbor’s tempter. He damages virtue and
integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is
a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a
grave offense.
2287 Anyone
who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to
do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has
directly or indirectly encouraged. “Temptations to sin are sure to come;
but woe to him by whom they come!” (Luke 17:1).
  
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