Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel

Before starting the Vigil Mass for Palm Sunday two years I decided to check the headlines on a Catholic news website.  My heart stood still as I read towards the bottom of the page, “Syrian priest kidnapped as war rages on.”  During my time in seminary I became a very close friend of two Syrian seminarians from Aleppo.  Throughout the three years that we studied together in Rome I oftentimes compared the conditions that awaited me in the United States and those that awaited them in Syria.  Any personal challenge I foresaw was quickly crushed by considering the challenges they would face by returning to Aleppo.  I admired their courage and bravery.  It could have been easier for them to go minister elsewhere, but they put into practice the sentiments of Saint Paul, “woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!”  They returned home fearless to preach the Gospel to their own people.

I hesitantly clicked on the headline and to my horror saw a picture of Father Michel Kayal wearing red vestments.  I will never forget that picture.  My heart sank and I shed a few tears.  I immediately emailed my other friend, Antoine, and he responded confirming the sad news.  On February 9th, 2013, (two years from tomorrow) Father Kayal and a Greek Orthodox priest were taken off a bus by rebels near Damascus and they were never seen again.

At first the kidnappers demanded $250,000 and the release of fifteen imprisoned rebels.  After a few weeks they only asked for money.  As more weeks went by, contact ceased and attempts to make a deal ended.  For almost two years now there has been no news about my friend a part from a brief phone call he was allowed to make to his mother one week after his kidnapping.

This kind and gentle man, who for so many years prepared to be a priest in order to serve God and his Church, was suddenly snatched away.

The words from our gloomy first reading from Job resound in my heart as I remember Michel, “is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?  He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages.  I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me.”  Life is difficult, oftentimes unfair.  Troubled nights have been allotted for many as they struggle to practice their faith under the fear of death.

Last week the Vatican recognized four men of the twentieth century as martyrs: Archbishop Oscar Romero from El Salvador killed in 1980, two Polish Conventual Franciscans, Father Tomaszek and Father Strzalkowski, who were killed in 1991 in my own country of Peru by members of the terrorist group the Shining Path, and an Italian priest, Alessandro Dordi, also executed as a martyr in Peru in 1991, the same year my family fled from Peru.  They will all be beatified soon.

All these men, like Saint Paul, lived out these words with conviction and urgency, “woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” even though doing this led them to death.

Fidelity to the Gospel, as Job found out, as my friend found out, as the recently proclaimed martyrs found out, does not come easy.

In the midst of our struggles and fears, we lift up a psalm of praise to the Lord, “Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  The Lord sustains the lowly; the wicked he casts to the ground.”  The words of today’s psalm strengthen us and fill us with conviction to live and to preach the Gospel in good times and in bad.

In our own struggles and fears, we are called to live and to preach the Gospel filled with hope just as the martyrs throughout history have done.  We must put into practice, filled with hope, the words of Saint Paul, “woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!”  May God grant us the grace to be his witnesses and bring others closer to the Christ and his Gospel.