When Jesus said you'll be my witnesses
you know what the word witness is in Greek? It's the word "martys" which is
martyr. You will be my martyrs. That means I need to be we need to be ready to
fight. But no the Father this is this is this is America, this is United States
you don't need to fight in America, you don't need to fight in United States. I
want to tell you a story some of you've heard it before.In the Fujian province of China it's still illegal to be Catholic. So this man he was Catholic and his family were Catholic and so what they
would do is it would have Mass in secret in their homes. They put their lives on
the line just to have the Eucharist. So they have sentries outside they have
mass in the middle of the night and sentries outside watching for the
officials to come . They had Mass one night and at the end of mass the sentries
rushed in and said, "officials are on their way," so everyone scattered. Priest
ran off, the family ran off, all these other families ran off but is this guy's
house so he couldn't, he didn't have anywhere to run off to.
So they burst into his home and they arrested him and he took him to wherever
they held him and they started to torture him. For three to four weeks day
after day night after night they would strip him naked, they would take a
jerry-rigged cattle prod that was rigged to give up to a million volts they put
it on different parts of his body. They'd say, "just tell us where the priest is you can
go back to your family, tell us where the priest is and you can
go home," but this man strapped to this thing getting electrocuted all over his
body getting burned all over his body, he knew that if he told where the priest
was his neighbors his family no one would have mass for who knows how long.
He just loved the Eucharist so much and he's like, "no I just I just I can't I
can't give it up, I can't say no to this, I can't betray the Eucharist." After three
four weeks of torturing him straight they're like we can't break this man and
so they let him go. Pretty soon, as soon as he could actually, he arranged passage
to the United States and he moved to a city in this country, this is just a
couple years ago and he got here when he got he was so overjoyed because among
other things he got to go to Mass every single day.
He got to go to Mass on Sundays and no one was arresting him. But he also realized
something pretty quickly, he realized that in America if you work harder, you
more. He said, "I want to give more to my family, I wanna do more, I want to
accomplish more, I want to be more in this country." So pretty quickly he didn't
have enough time to go to daily Mass and as time went on he occasionally would
skip Sunday Mass. Another year went by you only go to Mass on Christmas and
Easter. When I first heard this story that Easter the man didn't even go to
Mass. And Mark shared this with me I want to share this with you. He said, "I don't
want you to miss this point. What communism couldn't do, what torture
couldn't do, what electrified cattle prods couldn't do, our culture could do,
and it didn't even have to try." The torture could not break this man's love
for the Eucharist and our culture was able to strip this man's love for the
Eucharist and it didn't even need to try it. You guys we're in fight and it is
time to fight; it's time to witness. And this is exactly what the Church needs
right now. This is the last thing. This is not a new story, this is an old story, we
are exactly where the Church has always been. In the year 33, the very beginning
of Christianity, when everything looked like was over and Jesus was dead and
he's alive again there's Peter and there's Paul, there's Mary Magdalene,
there's Mary, the mother of God, they came together and they were
witnesses. 500 years later you have the Church that gets all big and fat and
comfortable and the Church gets corrupted and starts falling into
disrepair and so what does God do. God raises up someone like Augustine and like
Benedict and like Scholastica and all of a sudden the church gets renewed because
of people who are like, "no listen, if Jesus is who He says He is, I am who He
says I am. I want to be His witness. I'm not just going to believe in Him, I'm gonna
live like Him, I'm gonna look like Him." and the Church was renewed. And
another 400, 500 years later happened and the Church again gets bloated and gets
comfortable and gets soft. It falls into disrepair and so what's, what's God
do raise up people like Francis and Dominic and Claire and all of a sudden
it's the people who says, "I don't want to believe in Jesus, I want to belong to
Jesus, I want to look like Jesus, and I want to live like Jesus," and the church
is renewed. Again centuries pass, it's the 1500s and the Church is just bloated and
comfortable and falling apart. What does God do? He raises up St. Charles Borromeo, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena and what happens? The Church gets
renewed from the inside because people in the Church who say, "Enough! I have
courage! All it takes is one person with courage. I'm not gonna be like everyone
else I'm gonna be like Him!" Here we are 500 years later and the Church is comfortable and the church is bloated
and the church is falling into disrepair. And God will do what he always does. He
will raise up saints! This is the age of the martyrs. This is the age of men and
women with the courage and the freedom to look like Jesus and to live like
Jesus and those people will be renewed by Jesus and those people who are
renewed by Jesus will renew the Church and the renewed Church
will renew the world! It is time to get to work!! That motivates me more than
anything I've ever heard and I was blessed to be there in person. While it
was an incredible talk what was most powerful was the audience that he was
giving it to. This was that SEEK 2017 and there were over 15,000 people there. A
majority of them were college students. So here he was talking about having a
great love for the Eucharist and loving Christ to the point of death if
necessary to college students. I don't know if I'm generalizing here but most
college students you know probably not like, "Yeah let's die for Christ if need be!" but
that's the essence of Christianity modeling Christ, loving like He did to a
point of death, if need be. So it was amazing to hear a priest go up on stage
and not be like, "Alright, you're all good, you're going to Heaven but no it's
time to fight, let's step it up, it's the age of the martyrs." So while I've made
videos on Father Mike's funniest moments and they've reached tens of thousands of
people, I hope that this video reaches more because he says here what we need
to know, that it takes one person to change the world and I hope that one of
you watching is that one person, or all of you watching right. So have a blessed
day, please like and share this video and God love you!
