Dear Connie,<\/p>\n
You won\u2019t believe this, maybe, but it\u2019s true nonetheless: your sufferings make me suffer even more than yourself.\u00a0 I know that your fidelity is costing you a lot right now.\u00a0 Abandonment by those you love is perhaps the worst thing we can suffer in this life \u2013 as Jesus himself experienced when Judas kissed him goodbye (in more ways than one) in the Garden of Gethsemane.\u00a0 But never forget that you\u2019re a Christian, and so you suffer with meaning.\u00a0 \u201cBlessed are you when they persecute you for my sake\u2026\u201d our Lord explained.\u00a0 Maybe the example of today\u2019s saints will give you some encouragement.<\/p>\n
Rufina and Secunda were sisters, daughters of a Roman Senator (the Senators were still the most important Romans even in the third century \u2013 a truly privileged class) named Asterius.\u00a0 They were both Christians.\u00a0 Christianity was spreading at the time, but it was still a dangerous faith to hold.\u00a0 Officially, the laws forbade the new religion as an affront against State authority (Christians wouldn\u2019t worship State gods), but those laws were only intermittently enforced.\u00a0 Most of the time, the officials didn\u2019t actively go after the Christians, but if a neighbor turned you in, you could be prosecuted, tortured, and executed.<\/p>\n
Asterius was a wise father, and arranged for his daughters to marry two respectable young men of the same social class as himself, who shared the Christian faith: Armentarius and Verinus.\u00a0 Life was billowy.\u00a0 Unfortunately, before the weddings could take place, the Emperor Valerian initiated (for reasons still unbeknownst to historians \u2013 probably egged on by evil counselors) a systematic hunt for Christians, hoping to rid the economically unstable Empire of their supposedly pernicious influence by forcing them to convert or die.<\/p>\n
The two brave young men showed their true colors when word of the persecution spread.\u00a0 They counted their earthly lives and comfort more valuable than their souls (and than the truth) and burned incense before the pagan altars, showing their allegiance to the Roman State (and their betrayal of the One True God).\u00a0 Then they tried to use their masculine wiles to convince their beautiful fianc\u00e9es to do the same.\u00a0 You can imagine the conversations: you don\u2019t have to deny Christ in your hearts, just burn a bit of incense and pretend that you mean to worship the gods; we will be safe then and we will be able to do so much good for the Church; don\u2019t risk losing your life when you are so young\u2026 And so on.\u00a0 The prattle of cowards never varies.<\/p>\n
But Rufinas and Secunda would have none of it.\u00a0 Christ was their Lord, and no earthly Emperor (or fianc\u00e9) could make them betray him.\u00a0 Not knowing what else to do, they fled the city hoping to escape the authorities.\u00a0 But they were captured and brought back to Rome for trial.<\/p>\n
Junius Donatus, the Roman Prefect of the City at the time, devised a cruel torture for them.\u00a0 He had Rufina scourged while Secunda looked on.\u00a0 But instead of making Secunda cave in to his impious desires, she cried out: \u201cWhy do you honor my sister and not me?\u00a0 We both proclaim Jesus Christ as God; scourge us both!\u201d\u00a0 Poor Junius recognized (to his credit) that nothing he could do would budge these Christian warriors, so he condemned them and had them taken twelve miles outside the city to the Black Forest, where they were beheaded.\u00a0 Some fellow Christians buried them nearby, and soon the forest was renamed the White Forest.\u00a0 A chapel went up over their tombs, but in the wake of barbarian destruction, their remains were relocated to the Lateran Basilica in Rome, where they can still be venerated today.<\/p>\n
Of course you will have opposition, and others may eve have to suffer because of your faith.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important to remember the big picture: we\u2019re not about building heaven on earth; we\u2019re about traversing earth to get to heaven.<\/p>\n
Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Connie, You won\u2019t believe this, maybe, but it\u2019s true nonetheless: your sufferings make me suffer even more than yourself.\u00a0 I know that your fidelity is costing you a lot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n