6/1/2012 – Friday of the 8th week of ordinary time – St Justin Martyr – 1 Peter 4:7-13

         Do not be surprised if you find yourselves in a trial by fire, but rather rejoice that you are able to share in the sufferings of Christ & unite your sufferings to the sufferings that Christ endured.  This is the advice we hear in the reading from first Peter.  We see so much suffering in the world today, especially with the access we have to computers and smart phones and 24-hour-a-day news channels like CNN and Fox News.  Yet, we all know that one does not have to go half-way around the world to see the face of human suffering – many of us sitting in the pews this morning are going through a lot of sufferings ourselves, or we know friends or family members or fellow parishioners who are going through so much.  How powerful it is to recognize & acknowledge that suffering, to lift it up to the Lord, to try to use that suffering to bring about some good in our lives & in the world.

       Justin Martyr is the saint we celebrate today.  I heard a lot about him while I was in seminary, because even though he died way back in the year 165, his description of the mass is the earliest one we have, and it shows that the mass we celebrate today has all the elements of the Eucharistic celebrations in the early Church.  Justin was a philosopher of pagan religions, having grown up in the West Bank area of Palestine.   Yet, he converted to the Way of Jesus, and was an ardent defender of the faith in the early Church.  He died a martyr of Rome for the faith.

Being a follower of Jesus means that we unite the sufferings that we endure to the sufferings that Jesus endured on his way to the cross.  We lift up our sufferings to the Lord today, and we rejoice in the faith that we profess as believers in the risen Lord.