Fiat Ventures

By Jeffrey A. Beer Jr. –

The Old Testament of the Roman Catholic Bible ends with the first and second book of Maccabees.  These two books deal with the life-and-death struggles the Jewish people faced in the Palestinian area against the Syrian kings who were trying to eradicate the Jewish religion.   The first reading this Sunday comes from the second book of Maccabees, and tells an exciting and unbelievable story about seven Jewish brothers and their mother who are tortured and put to death because they refused to disobey their Jewish laws.

This Sunday we will hear the first brother say, “We are ready to die than transgress the laws of our fathers.”  What we won’t hear this Sunday is that by standing up like this, the brother had his tongue, feet and hands cut off, and was burned alive in a caldron while his mother and remaining brothers looked on.   When the second brother also refused to break the Jewish laws, he was also tortured in the same way.  At the point of his death, he says, “The King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.  It is for his laws that we are dying.”  The third brother, after having seen two of his brothers tortured and killed, and tortured himself, actually stuck his tongue out, and held out his hands and said, “It was from Heaven that I received these…from him I hope to receive them again.”  And finally this Sunday, we will hear the fourth brother say, at the point of death, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised by him.”  Although we won’t read it this Sunday, the remaining three brothers and their mother all suffered similar fates.

The story of this family seems like a fairy tale.  It is from this story that a lot of our beliefs about salvation are reinforced.  It is easy to be inspired by the courage these brothers showed in the face of torture and death, all to stand up for their beliefs.   But if we listen to the things they said as they were nearing death, we can see what motivated them to do this. They say things like, “The King of the world will raise us up to live again forever” and “from him I hope to receive (my hands) again” and finally, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the hope God gives of being raised up by him.”  Clearly the courage of these brothers was rooted in their belief that they would be going to heaven after their death.  Later in the story, the youngest and last brother says to the king, “For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of ever flowing life under God’s covenant.”

Our faith tells us that if we live a life in pursuit of a relationship with God, we will spend eternity in heaven and in the fullness of joy, peace and love.  Hopefully we will never have to choose between a torturous death and following God’s laws.  But you have to ask yourself: do you think heaven exists?

If the answer is yes, then it logically follows that hell also exists.  And if we believe in heaven as our Catholic faith tells us we should, then think about what we are risking when we refuse to stand up for or follow what God has told us is right and wrong.  What we do for a “good time” or the ways we lack self discipline or self control, or even when we lazily refuse to try to grow in our faith, morality and integrity might be a bigger gamble than we realize at the time.  Because if we don’t believe in God’s promise of salvation, then there is really no risk in doing things our own way.  But if we do believe in heaven and hell, our actions may be making a wager we are not willing to pay.  The story of the seven brothers is inspiring because of the courage with which they stood up for their religion. But the story should encourage us to continue to grow in faith in the hope of an everlasting reward.  For it has been said that the very purpose of our lives are “To know, love and serve God in this life, and be eternally happy with him in the next.”