Saint Agatha, Virgin and Martyr: Fidelity Stronger Than Fire
MASS Gaudeámus omnes
LESSON 1 Cor. 1:26-31
GOSPEL St Matthew 19:3-12
HOMILIST Mt Revd Jerome Lloyd OSJV
Beloved In Christ, welcome to this broadcast Mass on this the Feast of St Agatha of Sicily, who was martyred in the year 251.
According to tradition, she was endowed with remarkable beauty and had to resist the solicitations of one governor called Quintus, who, unable to attain his end by persuasion, took recourse to violence. In her martyrdom her breast was torn by his order, but was healed on the following night by the Apostle Peter, who appeared to her in prison. Then her body was rolled on pieces of broken pottery and on burning ashes, and when she was brought back to her cell she expired while praying. This happened at Catania in 251 during the persecution of the Emperor Decius.
Now, as with various other virgin martyrs, in the case of Agatha she had committed and dedicated herself to Christ, desiring to offer herself whole and entire as perfect an offering as she may.
Now we’ve spoken much recently, my brothers and sisters, on the subject of purity and chastity, because seeking after holiness, striving after holiness, is what being a Christian is all about. And it’s worth remembering that however complicated the contemporary zeitgeist tries to make things, the faith — our faith — is very simple.
Everyone who is not called to marriage is expected to be chaste, is expected to practice continence and sexual purity. Any sensual intimacy is constrained, confined, within marriage. There is no getting around that from Scripture.
Here in today’s Gospel, which by the way is from Matthew chapter 19:3–12 if you’d like that reference for later research, our Lord clearly defines what marriage is unequivocally. Marriage is between a man and a woman, the two becoming as it were one flesh. And our Lord refers to Genesis in making this definition plain and clear and simple. Clearly He says this was in the mind of the Creator from the beginning: God made them male and female.
Now the Gospel goes on to discuss divorce. There are some who try to say that the whole of this Gospel passage only refers and applies to divorce, but clearly it doesn’t. Clearly we can extrapolate from it a clear definition of marriage.
Our Lord in many ways was very logical. He mentions first the concept that God had from eternity and made realized in creation. Then He explains what marriage is as the sacrament that unites male and female together, making of them one flesh in order for the procreation of children. It is clear, simple biology.
Then in answer to their question about divorce, our Lord again makes clear what God’s concept of marriage from the beginning had been, and that though indeed Moses had seemed to permit divorce, our Lord says that is because you — meaning the ancient Israelites — had hardened your hearts toward God’s law. “By reason of the hardness of your heart Moses permitted you to put away your wives, but it was not so from the beginning.”
Then our Lord goes on to say that whoever puts away his wife — meaning whoever divorces his wife — except for immorality, here making it quite clear that infidelity is the only just cause for separation.
All this, my brothers and sisters, is very simple. It’s very plain. It’s very clear. There are many abroad, of course, who will try to suggest otherwise, but as I hope you can see, our Lord’s teaching here is very clear.
But He Himself acknowledges that not all can accept this teaching, but those to whom it has been given — meaning to those who receive the word, those who receive the Gospel, those who receive the teaching of the Word, the Word of course being Himself.
“For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made so by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.”
There are eunuchs who were born so from their mother’s womb. Indeed there are all sorts of congenital conditions, but also natural dispositions, that may mean effectively that people are born eunuch. There are eunuchs who were made so by men — indeed in ancient times there was a barbaric custom across many cultures that made eunuchs of people. It’s too early in the morning and within the context of Mass really to go into further detail, but I hope you can understand what I’m referring to.
And there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the Kingdom of Heaven. Now here our Lord is not necessarily referring to anyone who has physically made themselves a eunuch for the sake of Heaven. What He is saying and speaking to are those who maintain their chastity, who maintain their purity, and do so for love of God.
Here of course very obviously would be religious brothers and sisters — those who have taken vows in the religious life, those who have promised celibacy and chastity — but also too every Christian who is unmarried for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, meaning voluntarily conforming to God’s will for the sake of salvation.
Now when we recall the virgin martyrs, invariably as we said the other day many of their stories are very similar. They were beautiful young women, or indeed sometimes really girls, who men sought for their own end, either simply to despoil or to marry. And in each case the virgin concerned had made voluntarily, of their own volition, of their own will, a desire to preserve themselves for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven, a desire to offer themselves to God as a spotless offering of themselves.
Now what was true almost two thousand years ago for these early virgin martyrs is still true sadly today. That is that there are many young beautiful women and girls that men desire to despoil for their own end, to abuse, or indeed likewise perhaps to marry, but also again motivated by lust.
And this, my brothers and sisters, is something that our contemporary society struggles with: the confusion between love and lust, between romantic sentimental love and lust. The vast majority, particularly of our young people, struggle acutely with this confusion. Impressionable young hearts and minds are indeed wont to confuse love and lust.
Which is why in times past, of course, marriage preparation was so important for the sacrament of matrimony. The purpose of it really was to explore with the couple, to ensure that their motivations and their reasons for wanting to marry had more to it and wasn’t just about the confusion between sentimentalism and emotional desire and lust.
The great pity today, where so few marriages now take place in churches, means that a great deal of people get married who really shouldn’t — who really shouldn’t have got married — who got married carried away with their emotions, carried away with their lusts, carried away with their selfishness, however mutually appreciable it may have been.
But the reason why so many divorces occur today is because some people should just never have been married, and because marriages often don’t take place in the context of religion, nor let alone in the context of a church family.
So it is that people receive no guidance. The state and civil authorities, when they celebrate civil marriages, they don’t — there’s no preparation with the couple beforehand except for the legalities, except for proof of identity. Otherwise no guidance is given.
And the real and very great shame of course from all this is the number of broken families that now exist in our society, the number of children who are brought up from broken homes, some brought up without knowing both their parents. And this we know has knock-on effects both for the individuals concerned and for society too.
Children from broken families are statistically disadvantaged. They can be and often are emotionally traumatized. This often has effects and ramifications for their own lives later as adults. There are seas of research.
Now that’s not to say of course that every child from a broken home is necessarily going to experience all these difficulties and disadvantages. Some may. Some may experience a few. Some may not at all. But statistically, sadly, the vast majority do.
We also know that statistically again, according to lots of research, a particular and acute phenomenon in today’s society is loneliness. Huge great numbers of people are living alone, many experiencing depression, anxiety, isolationism. And divorces and broken homes have contributed to this contemporary situation.
And it’s true to say there are a great many broken hearts indeed, even broken minds and broken souls in our society today — and all because of the reduction of influence in our culture of our faith.
And this isn’t helped by the fact that some denominations have wed themselves to the contemporary zeitgeist, adopting and compromising secular values, trying to blend them with the Gospel.
And one of the great tragedies in the realm of preaching the Gospel, of evangelism today, is this false notion some have put about of unconditional salvation. I say false because salvation is contingent on conditions.
You see, there are those who confuse again God’s love with salvation. God loves everyone. God loves all, even in spite of themselves and what they have done. But salvation is a covenant relationship. It is two-way. To be saved one has to embrace and accept the Cross, has to repent, be contrite, be baptized, made holy, and then persist in maintaining holiness in order to realize communion with God both now and for eternity.
The great sadness, the great sorrow, the great pain that our Lord experienced on the Cross was the certain knowledge that so many would not be saved, even by this supreme act of self-ablation and sacrifice.
St Paul and the other apostolic writers are very clear too that salvation is an ongoing process. It’s something that is worked out. And when tragedy is, as I say, that a great many today have confused salvation with God’s love — yes God loves everyone, yes God desires that everyone be saved — but salvation is conditional.
And this is why it’s so important for orthodox Christians to both live and teach, and in that way proclaim the Gospel by their own lives, so that as many as possible may know the truth and knowing the truth be then able to be saved.
And this requires each and every one of us to have the courage like St Agatha and the virgin martyrs of the early Church: the courage to make a stand. Which doesn’t have to be confrontational, doesn’t have to be controversial, doesn’t have to give rise to conflict, but does have to be made.
We said the other day that another word for communion, or another way of appreciating communion, is fellowship. When we read of the Church in the second chapter of Acts, we read of a fellowship of believers. And it was this fellowship that enabled and encouraged Christians to make a stand, to remain steadfast to Jesus, to remain faithful to God.
The Christians helped one another by supporting one another. And so should we. Indeed many of us would feel a great deal more confident about making a stand if we knew that we had the fellowship of the Church to support us, to stand with us.
And it is sad that that is becoming increasingly more difficult today, for much of these compromises and adoptions of secular values have permeated every congregation. It can be very difficult for orthodox Christians to experience genuine fellowship even within their own church communities.
So is the level of apostasy — and I use that term deliberately — because as I reflected the other day, all these changes in attitude, they’re not progressive, they’re regressive, because they rehash old heresies which skew the proper appreciation and understanding of who Jesus is.
Which means there are Christians today who aren’t really Christians. Not because they’re nasty, not necessarily because they don’t behave in a Christlike way, but they’re technically not Christians because they don’t actually believe in the Jesus of the Gospels. They have so cut and pasted from Scripture that what they have is not His Gospel but their own version.
This is the damage that is in the Church today.
But remembering and recalling the witness and testimony of the saints of the past should encourage and enable saints to arise in our present and in the future. For we know that the true Church, the Body of Christ, will not be defeated.
As our Lord said, the gates of Hell shall not prevail — meaning it is Hell that is on the defensive, not the Church — even if only a faithful remnant remains.
When the Lord returns, will He find true believers? We, my brothers and sisters, who would be orthodox Christians, must ourselves adapt to the contemporary situation by utilizing the various means available to us to realize fellowship and support, to give courage, to receive courage, and to make a stand — to make a stand for Christ, to make a stand for His truth, to grow ourselves in holiness by keeping His word, and by serving others with the truth in the truth, so that they may be truly saved.
In this wise may we honor the testimony of our forbears. But above all we must live the faith in order to proclaim and teach it, which solemn obligation we are all charged, for this is God’s will.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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