after ashes: day by day

Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Ps 1 Blessed are they who hope in the Lord; Luke 9:22-25

TOday we commemorate St. Polycarp, bishop & martyr. Polycarp was a pupil under st. John the Evangelist. He knew those who knew Christ.

ON his way to martyrdom, when asked to denounce Christ and to swear by the fortune of Caesar, Polycarp responded, "86 years I have served him, and he never did me ny wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me."

When threatened with with fire, to be burned at the stake unless he denounced christ, Polycarp continued,"The fire you threaten burns only an hour and is quenched after a little; for you do not know the fire of the coming judgment of everlasting punishment that is laid up for the impious. But why do you delay? Come do what you may."

Polycarp truly had courage under fire.


Fortitude, one of the cardinal virtues, ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good.

But we cannot win the supernatural olympics unless we have daily preparation and training. This season of lent is meant to be like a 40 day spring training, where we daily prepare ourselves for the courage needed to truly look into the face of the crucified one and be won over by that kind of love and thus seek to truly let that kind of love be the hallmark of our existence.

Polycarp did this. We, too, must have the courage to peer into the eyes of Christ and embrace the cross each day anew.

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Daily! Not once in a while. Not when we feel like. Not tomorrow. Daily!

It is day by day we learn the courage of love and implement it in our life.

We must remember that the cross of Christ was primarily the burden of the sins of another. That cross was our sins. HOw do we daily carry the cross of the sins of another.

It doesn't take a whole lot of courage to be judgmental. It does take a whole lot of courage to help carry the sins of another and to do so with great magnanimity, cheerfulness, and patience.