Church has Left the Building: Blood of Martyrs is the Seed

Destroying someone provokes emotions, spreading the seeds of inspiration while weakening old orders

Emptiness comes before fullness, says Cardinal Timothy Dolan. You must first empty space before you can fill it with something new.

Loss creates new demands: On the first Easter, Dolan notes, the tomb and death itself were emptied. Freed. Death lost its power, becoming a doorway. The seeds of Christianity quickly “went viral,’' spreading around the world.

Sharing faith is “planting seeds,” because Christianity is powerful. Seeds start small and grow into new lives and purposes. The day before Easter, Michigan’s governor banned the selling of seeds, adding several new and unwelcome restrictions on residents. Easter flowers were ruled “non-essential.” Nurseries and florists shut down while big retailers had to block off gardening aisles.

But guess what? More than 1,800 years ago, an author named Tertullian explained in Apologeticus:

“The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church.’’

Our state won’t let us buy seeds at stores: but the seeds of our faith are like the seeds at the tip of a wild dandelion. Blow on a dandelion at the right time and the seeds will spread faster than you can imagine. Especially in spring.

Ideas work the same way as dandelion seeds. Blow at the right time and they go everywhere, sprouting up in places you’d least expect. Here is how Martyrs become seeds:

A Martyr, named after St. Justin Martyr (100–165), is someone killed for his or her beliefs. Just 30 years after Justin Martyr’s death, Catholic author Tertullian saw that all martyrs grew more powerful and influential after their death. He saw how the blood of murdered martyrs planted the seeds that would grow faith.

Their life stories (testimony) and unjust deaths inspire far, far more people to the cause, turning others against the old power (which inevitably is overthrown). That is one reason the Church has withstood and outlasted every rival, attack and persecution over 2,000 years. How many have tried and failed to challenge or suppress the Church?

The Roman Empire? The Ottoman Empire? The French Revolution? Every communist country? Nazi Germany? All tried and failed to wipe out or silence Christianity. The stories of murdered or persecuted Christians made them Martyrs whose stories inspired far more people to take their place, giving birth to the phrase:

“Don’t create a Martyr”

Jesus and His Apostles, all murdered unjustly for their beliefs, were themselves Martyrs whose stories inspired far more to turn against the mighty Roman Empire.

Ignore the Church and its problems mainly come from within. Attack the Church and you create new Martyrs, who become heroes, new seeds of the Church. Jesus and the other Church founders started a movement that outgrew, overwhelmed and outlasted Rome, a thousand-year empire.

“God didn’t become man to tell stories: he came here to do a deed… to rescue, re-create and restore us,’’ Father John Riccardo said in his Easter 2020 homily. “God brings dead people back to life.”

New York, New Jersey and our native Michigan have been the epicenter of the 2020 pandemic. The apex and new hospitalizations peaked during Holy Week. Things change fast in Michigan: In one week, we’ve had a sunny 63 degrees, snow, wind storms, hail and our Upper Peninsula is expecting 24 inches of snow.

Now almost every sort of human interaction is limited too

“All public and private gatherings of any size are prohibited,’’ Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said as she tightened her stay-at-home order after the peak has been reached.

Few understood why she needed to ban the sale of seeds and other gardening supplies. A meme noted she supported selling grass (marijuana) but not mowing grass. We can visit neighbors to let out their dogs but not to see them (unless they’re ill). We can buy liquor and lottery tickets but can’t paint our homes or take our motor boat onto the waters of the Great Lakes State.

Thousands are planning a Wednesday protest at the Capitol called Operation Gridlock. More than 151,000 have signed an online petition calling for her recall. While she is talked about as a potential vice president, she's also been decided as “The Worst Governor in America.’’

Looking at the worldwide response to the pandemic, The Washington Post ran a jarring headline: “Leaders seize new powers to fight coronavirus, fears grow for democracy.’'

We provide the seed then repeat Friday, Saturday, Sunday phases through life

From California, mega church pastor Rick Warren, who is friendly to Catholicism, says we all go through our own patterns of replicating Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter throughout our lives:

“Friday is the day of fear and pain when Jesus was arrested and tortured,” Warren said. “Saturday, Jesus is dead and in the ground, His disciples are disillusioned because their dream just died. It’s a day of confusion. Sunday, when Jesus is resurrected, is a day of hope. You’ll go through Friday, Saturday and hopefully, you’ll get to Sunday,”

Even secular media has invoked religious imagery claiming Trump has “blood on his hands,’’ questioning his “soul.” The more hostile the tone, the more his poll numbers rise. Why? Political martyrdom: The blood of the martyrs is the seed. The 20th century produced more martyrs and saints than any other and the blood of Martyrs is the seed of the church, Father Michael Gaitley stresses.

How many political/cultural Martyrs will the pandemic produce?

Removing supply creates demand. And being barred from a constitutional right can create political or cultural martyrs. With churches shuttered, the Body of Christ is spread out, like seeds spread everywhere. New Martyrs and their stories are everywhere.

In Kentucky, a Louisville church tried to follow the spirit of health restrictions by offering a “drive-in” service and was stopped by the mayor. A judge made Christians political martyrs by ruling the mayor’s ban “criminalized Easter.’’

In Tampa, Florida, a church pastor was arrested for doing what he was told he could do the day before. In Kansas, the Supreme Court agreed with their governor (overruling lawmakers) with a rule banning gatherings of 10 or more.

Suffering + Love = Mercy

Michigan’s restrictive lockdown literally made it illegal for our children or my parents (or anyone) to visit our home on Easter Sunday. But the blood of sacrifice can sow new seeds:

• We instead walked our dog (as many others suddenly are because it’s one of the few activities still allowed by civil authorities). We said “Happy Easter'' to dozens of strangers we met along the way, people we would have never seen otherwise.
• The pandemic also meant Andrea Bocelli made a special 30-minute concert for the people locked-down. My bride set the table for four (though there were just two of us) because of a Polish tradition of leaving an extra place for Christ at your table. I set my laptop on the table and Bocelli sang to us.
• We then “invited’’ the brilliant Father John Riccardo via his special video homily just as we watched portions of our St. Patrick parish's Easter Vigil and the Easter morning Mass, services that were never videotaped or available online before the pandemic.

The Church has left the building

With Catholics kept from Church, the Church has literally left the buildings. Father Jim Bilot, pastor of St. Paul on the Lake in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, described the way the Catholic Men’s Fellowship organized prayer marches in front of the nearby hospitals, praying for COVID-19 patients and the healing of the whole world.

“That mercy of God is just going and going and going,’’ Bilot said. “The men’s group that meets every Thursday morning has now been walking in front of St. John’s Hospital at 3:00 praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet. They’re praying for everyone in St. John’s but you know something? It’s going out to all the other hospitals and facilities and people. It’s going to the funeral homes where there are bodies that need to be buried.”

He noted his parishioners have made over 1,000 phone calls asking people if they need help and one of the callers is an 87-year-old woman sending Christian love.

“It’s not the end,’’ Bilot said. “If we’re feeling the Cross, it’s OK because it means it’s not the end, that there is life, that Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead. He is alive.’’

Future Michigan saint: Now is the Age of Martyrs

The late Father John Hardon, a Michigan priest now being considered for sainthood said we have begun the new Age of Martyrs.

“I define suffering as the rational experience of pain,’’ Hardon said. “We define pain as whatever is contrary to the created will. And, of course, that can be physical pain, it can be emotional pain, or it can be a spiritual pain. The deepest kind of pain is, needless to say, spiritual pain…

“Consequently, it is important not just to experience pain, but I even dare to say, enjoy — enjoy suffering. Behind that strange statement is the deepest mystery of our faith — namely, that God, as St. Paul tells us, became man having joy set before him, and he chose the Cross. That’s the deepest mystery of our existence. Clearly, when the second person of the Holy Trinity became man, he resigned himself to pain. He chose it. He chose to experience what is contrary to the human will, so that he might teach us the most difficult mystery of life….”