by Jenny Klejeski
Without sacrifice there is no love. –St. Maximilian Kolbe
I think anyone who was raised in a Christian tradition must have, at some point or another, day dreamed about being martyred. Perhaps this was my own macabre pastime, but I’m guessing others shared in this activity. How could we not? We’re told these stories of heroic virtue: the early Christians fed to the lions, Joan of Arc burnt at the stake, Isaac Jogues hacked to death by a tomahawk, and maybe when we were older, Agatha whose breasts were cut off. They’re hero stories–they’re meant to inspire courage. It’s not for nothing that we keep telling these stories over and over again (even ones with dubious historical credibility). And just as we do when we hear any hero story (Christian or secular), we ask ourselves the question, “what would I have done in that situation?”
This is not a bad question to ask per se, but doesn’t it miss the point of these stories?
The feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe (which we celebrated a week ago), always reminds me of a homily I heard several years ago on his feast day. The gist of the homily was this: Maximilian Kolbe would not have been able to sacrifice his life for the other man in Auschwitz had he not been practicing it his whole life. In other words, we tend to think of the heroic sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe (and other martyrs) as grand, isolated events, when in reality, they are simply the logical culmination of a life of sacrifice.
This, I believe, is much more convicting than the idea that martyrs simply made one major decision for Christ at the very end of their lives. It shifts the question from the entertaining, day-dream hypothetical “if I were faced with death by [lethal injection/firing squad/burning at the stake/beheading/gladiatorial games/etc.] for the sake of Christ, would I accept it?” about which we probably concoct a heart-wrenching scene, and to which we will probably answer ‘yes,’ depending on how pious we’re feeling on a given day. Perhaps we share the sentiment of Flannery O’Connor’s unnamed girl in “A Temple of the Holy Ghost:” “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
Instead, the real, much more mundane (and yet somehow more gut-wrenching) question that the actual lives of the martyrs should prompt us to think on is “what am I doing right now to die for Christ?” If a martyr is a witness for Christ, how am I dying so as to witness to Christ? This is where real martyrdom lies. It is a movement away from an individualized spirituality and pride-masked-as-sacrifice. It is continual death to self. Slowly and painfully chipping away my wants and whims so as to be filled with self-effacing, self-emptying love. And as we practice self-denial in the small, everyday matters, we find ourselves more ready and able to say an obedient ‘yes’ when the stakes are higher.
Christopher Nolan’s latest movie Dunkirk explores this very idea. The film recounts the events that took place in the French village of Dunkirk during the Second World War when the British army, surrounded by the Germans, attempted to evacuate their troops. Nolan’s take on this event is fascinating because he chooses not simply to give an historical tribute to the affair, but rather to create a character-focused masterpiece.
The story takes place through three different perspectives: the battle in the sky, in the sea, and on the beach. Nolan creates a sense of suspenseful waiting and eerie monotony by having scarce dialogue as troops on the beach helplessly await rescue. These long stretches of monotony are harshly interrupted by violent outbursts of bombs, torpedoes, and machine gun fire.
Nolan’s portrayal of the event is much less about an historical event and much more about the choices that lie within every human heart. Yes, there are certainly great acts of heroic self-sacrifice (martyrdoms of a sort), but the majority of the characters are incapable of actually doing anything. They’re trapped in Dunkirk, waiting—hoping—to be rescued by some external force. And other characters, who are in the midst of making heroic choices, are given every reason and every opportunity to turn back. There is a great drama to even the most mundane moments of the film as you see the characters make choices out of great selfishness or out of great love, and these choices impact their capacity for heroism.
In some ways, this is what we all face. We’re all in need of an external, transcendent salvation and we all have choices to make in the interim. We can choose what is self-serving or what is self-emptying. And while we may crave to perform a grand, heroic act, it’s probably not what we’re called to at this moment. I’m willing to be burned at the stake, yes, but somehow emptying the dishwasher without recognition seems impossible. Probably because the latter is real. In For the Life of the World, Alexander Schmemann warns against the temptation to oversimplify the drama of our redemption to one moment:
A version of this post first appeared under the same title on I Smile, Of Course in 2016.
This is not a bad question to ask per se, but doesn’t it miss the point of these stories?
The feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe (which we celebrated a week ago), always reminds me of a homily I heard several years ago on his feast day. The gist of the homily was this: Maximilian Kolbe would not have been able to sacrifice his life for the other man in Auschwitz had he not been practicing it his whole life. In other words, we tend to think of the heroic sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe (and other martyrs) as grand, isolated events, when in reality, they are simply the logical culmination of a life of sacrifice.
This, I believe, is much more convicting than the idea that martyrs simply made one major decision for Christ at the very end of their lives. It shifts the question from the entertaining, day-dream hypothetical “if I were faced with death by [lethal injection/firing squad/burning at the stake/beheading/gladiatorial games/etc.] for the sake of Christ, would I accept it?” about which we probably concoct a heart-wrenching scene, and to which we will probably answer ‘yes,’ depending on how pious we’re feeling on a given day. Perhaps we share the sentiment of Flannery O’Connor’s unnamed girl in “A Temple of the Holy Ghost:” “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.”
Instead, the real, much more mundane (and yet somehow more gut-wrenching) question that the actual lives of the martyrs should prompt us to think on is “what am I doing right now to die for Christ?” If a martyr is a witness for Christ, how am I dying so as to witness to Christ? This is where real martyrdom lies. It is a movement away from an individualized spirituality and pride-masked-as-sacrifice. It is continual death to self. Slowly and painfully chipping away my wants and whims so as to be filled with self-effacing, self-emptying love. And as we practice self-denial in the small, everyday matters, we find ourselves more ready and able to say an obedient ‘yes’ when the stakes are higher.
Christopher Nolan’s latest movie Dunkirk explores this very idea. The film recounts the events that took place in the French village of Dunkirk during the Second World War when the British army, surrounded by the Germans, attempted to evacuate their troops. Nolan’s take on this event is fascinating because he chooses not simply to give an historical tribute to the affair, but rather to create a character-focused masterpiece.
Nolan’s portrayal of the event is much less about an historical event and much more about the choices that lie within every human heart. Yes, there are certainly great acts of heroic self-sacrifice (martyrdoms of a sort), but the majority of the characters are incapable of actually doing anything. They’re trapped in Dunkirk, waiting—hoping—to be rescued by some external force. And other characters, who are in the midst of making heroic choices, are given every reason and every opportunity to turn back. There is a great drama to even the most mundane moments of the film as you see the characters make choices out of great selfishness or out of great love, and these choices impact their capacity for heroism.
In some ways, this is what we all face. We’re all in need of an external, transcendent salvation and we all have choices to make in the interim. We can choose what is self-serving or what is self-emptying. And while we may crave to perform a grand, heroic act, it’s probably not what we’re called to at this moment. I’m willing to be burned at the stake, yes, but somehow emptying the dishwasher without recognition seems impossible. Probably because the latter is real. In For the Life of the World, Alexander Schmemann warns against the temptation to oversimplify the drama of our redemption to one moment:
“The fight of the new Adam against the old Adam is a long and painful one, and what a naive oversimplification it is to think, as some do, that the ‘salvation’ they experience in revivals and ‘decisions for Christ,’ and which result in moral righteousness, soberness and warm philanthropy, is the whole of salvation, is what God meant when He gave His Son for the life of the world. The one true sadness is ‘that of not being a saint,’ and how often the ‘moral’ Christians are precisely those who never feel, never experience this sadness, because of their own ‘experience of salvation,’ the feeling of ‘being saved’ fills them with self-satisfaction; and whoever has been ‘satisfied’ has already received his reward and cannot thirst and hunger for that total transformation and transfiguration of life which alone makes ‘saints’” (79, emphasis mine).If we desire the crown of sainthood, we can’t wait to be thrown to the lions or asked at gunpoint if we believe in Christ. It begins today. Wherever we are, whomever we’re with, however silently and unseen. Mary’s glorious Assumption required her quiet fiat. Let us ask her intercession to spare us from the ‘one true sadness:’ that of not being a saint.
A version of this post first appeared under the same title on I Smile, Of Course in 2016.
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