Dear Friends in Christ,

This week marks the beginning of Catholic Schools Week. In this special week, we remember how the Church has been the instigator and model for education at all levels, not only here in the United States, but throughout the whole world. We owe so much to the Church’s efforts of preserving education beginning with monks in the early centuries, continuing through the scholastic period of the Middle Ages, all the way through the period of the Enlightenment and to our present day. The Church has always made every effort to teach her wisdom to all, regardless of age, race, or background. We are greatly indebted to those who sacrifice for us to have an education in our lives.

In this letter this week, we are continuing our journey through the early history of the Church, seeing the ways in which God’s providence has unfolded in the lives of men and women, many of whom are Saints. Today, we will be discussing the way in which the Church suffered from persecution, specifically under the Roman Empire. Some of us may know a number of Saints who were killed for the Faith, for example, St. Peter and St. Paul, or St. Agnes or St. Lucy. To help us appreciate these Saints more, it would be good to have some background as to why this persecution occurred in the life of the Church, and then see how God’s providence used these persecutions as a way to bring about good.

First, it is helpful to understand the religious practices that pagan Roman culture followed at the time of Christianity’s birth. In Roman culture, all people practiced some sort of polytheism, meaning that they worshiped many gods instead of one God. For some of us, we are familiar with the ancient story of Greek and Roman gods, such as Mars, Apollo, or Mercury. However, in the Roman culture it was much more common for families or small communities to have their own gods that they were devoted to. In the Acts of the Apostles, we see St. Paul confronting the polytheism of the Greeks when he points out their worship to an “unknown god,” who he points out to be the God of Israel (see Acts 17:22-23).

In addition, the Romans also practiced a form of paganism that worshiped the Emperor as a god. We see evidence of this in the lives of many of the Saints who refused to offer worship towards the Emperor, choosing instead to suffer death for the sake of Christ. For many, the Emperor symbolized the supreme rule of Rome in the ancient world, and so refusal to worship him meant refusal to submit to the authority of Rome.

In the face of this pagan culture, the early Christians were seen as an extension of the Jewish culture, since they both only worshiped one God. Beginning around the year 64 A.D., after a great fire in Rome, the Emperor Nero began persecuting the Christians in Rome, casting the blame of the fire upon them. We know that St. Peter was killed around this time, along with many others who lived in Rome and throughout the Empire.

However, as Tertullian famously remarked, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Even as the Church was persecuted, she continued to grow and spread in secret. This is what God is really good at doing: taking something that is truly evil and making it into something good. Even if we are not physically killed for our faith, we are called to be ready to be witnesses to Jesus in the way we defend the Faith every day.

May Christ’s Peace be with you, Fr. Briggs