Posted on 11/30/2012 5:38:40 PM PST by johniegrad
Beloved, we do not think of a martyr simply as a good Christian who has been killed because he is a Christian: for that would be solely to mourn. We do not think of him simply as a good Christian who has been elevated to the company of Saints: for that would be simply to rejoice: and neither our mourning nor our rejoicing is as the world's is. A Christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident. Still less is a Christian martyrdom the effect of a man's will to become a Saint, as a man by willing and contriving may become a ruler of men. A martyrdom is always the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. It is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, and who no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of being a martyr. So, thus as on earth the Church mourns and rejoices at once, in a fashion that the world cannot understand; so in Heaven the Saints are most high, having made themselves most low, and are seen, not as we see them, but in the light of the Godhead from which they draw their being.
This post is a good reminder.
St. Andrew, the first evangelizer — he went out and got his brother, Peter.
Benedict XVI Lauds Ecumenical Progress - Greets Bartholomew I for Feast of St. Andrew
St. Andrew, the First Called
Pope calls St. Andrew a link to the Eastern Churches
Relic of St. Andrew Given to Greek Orthodox Church
Papal Message to Bartholomew I on Feast of St. Andrew
The Feast of Saint Andrew [November 30th]
St. Andrew Lighting the way for Advent
Orthodox Feast of +Andrew the First- Called Apostle, Nov. 30
Catholic leader calls for St Andrew's holiday [Scotland]
St Andrew, Apostle
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