July 10th - Faustino Villanueva y Villanueva

Modern martyrs. Yesterday we talked about martyrs and the reasoning seems obvious for why they are martyrs. For modern martyrs it seems to be less clear-cut. Were they killed for practicing their Faith or for political/social reasons? Were they living their Faith or following a modern relativistic path?
If Faith is the reason you involve yourself in political/social causes what motivates you? What path you see in order to accomplish the goals of Faith may seem to muddy the waters but we can only guess what the killers saw it only in human terms. They saw it as a problem to be solved through violence. Why they killed has no bearing on the motivations of those they kill.
Certainly we can lose our way when supporting causes and that is on us to keep Christ ever before us. Sometimes we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most often, I think, we are doing what we are guided to do by the Spirit which sometimes puts us into dangerous situations.
Faustino, an extremely recent addition in 2021, was one of several missionaries killed in Guatemala. He was shot in his home after celebrating evening Mass in 1980 by two young men who were visiting him in the parish house. I could find no good explanation for their act but Pope Francis celebrated his beatification, recognizing him as a martyr. His life, though lived in a politically charge situation, was obviously lived in holiness, in a way that made his death a death of Faith.
I guess we should consider that when we judge others through human eyes.

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Then I saw thrones; those who sat on them were entrusted with judgment. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast or its image nor had accepted its mark on their foreheads or hands. They came to life and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

-- Revelation 20:4