Siroki Brijeg

“‘Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.’” (Luke 9:44).

Herzegovinian Franciscans who were Martyred at Siroki Brijeg

When I was at university, I studied economics as some of my subjects.  I had never studied economics before and I considered it a very interesting sort of subject that focused on mapping out theories based on the application of various assumptions, and interestingly, if you change the assumptions, you change the outcome significantly.

One of the economic theories that was very popular during my time at university, was the theory of communism and socialism as a way of ensuring equitable division of assets.  The theory is that is wealth were split equally between workers then everyone would get a fair share.  This is based on the assumption that human beings are not greedy and will not corruptly use power for their own advantage.  This is – of course – never how communism has worked in practice.  What really happens is that the government – with the power to divide wealth – violently annihilates the higher socio-economic classes, stealing their wealth for themselves, and through corruption, never quite returning that wealth to the working people.  Then, the government with all their increased power, tend not to manage things very well, because they eliminated the people from their society that made money by doing things well.  And the end result is bitter poverty and terrible oppression of freedom.  This is – surely – one of the reasons that the Blessed Virgin asked the children at Fatima to ask the Pope to consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart (for there is so much suffering that came as a result of the Communist revolution there)…

At the Franciscan Monastery, Siroki Brijeg, on 7 February 1945, Communist soldiers arrived.  They ordered the monks to deny God and the Pope – religious freedom is one of the first freedoms that communism seeks to destroy because the government has more control over a people who believe in nothing higher than the government.

The monks at Siroki Brijeg refused.  The solders told the monks that they could make a choice between life or death – all thirty of them chose ETERNAL LIFE and were martyred in that place.

And I have been thinking about how terrible such a martyrdom was – and is where it continues in various parts of the world…  And yet this is nothing new to us – our entire faith is based on the sacrificial martyrdom of our God for our sins…

“But while they were all marvelling at everything he did, he said to his disciples, ‘Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men.’ But they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, that they should not perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this saying.” (Luke 9:43b-45).

And Christ reminds me about this – even twenty centuries later – when He says, “let these words sink into your ears”…  Surely that was intended for me – me who lives such an easy life, devoid of any real trial or sacrifice?

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.