The media ignores it, the current pope ignores it (guess he’s too busy with reducing our carbon footprint and helping Bill Gates vaccinate the world) but stories similar to the one below are increasingly common. In Pakistan, in India, in China, in Africa. Amazing story if you have 2 minutes to spare.
I feel like we all need to prepare for martyrdom. It is a definite "holy" fear of mine. St. Stephen, I ask that you pray for us to have the grace God gave to you when facing your martyrdom, to have no fear, no pain, and just the simple, pure joy that you experienced as the stones flew unto you. Amen
I always think the same..." no torture," but many seem to be exactly that. Only the grace of God can help us endure. My husband and I have been praying for the grace of courage lately.
Imagine you are in the Tokugawa era, your Japanese persecutors are trying to remove each of your fingernails from your fingers...
I’m a podiatrist, I dealt with patients with toenail problems every day for over twenty years, so unfortunately I know very well how much this hurts. I don’t want to think about it…
Here’s a hopeful sign (maybe). I read years ago a mystic (can’t remember who) stating that in many cases (all cases?) Heaven can sort of separate the soul from the body so that the martyr does not experience the pain that should result from the injuries inflicted on the body. Far fetched? Maybe not. Just think how the Garabandal and Medjugorje visionaries would fall to their knees on hard rocks and experience no pain whatsoever. If heaven so decides it’s clearly possible. Go to 2:00 mark below. And here. 7:30 mark
I have to believe that when we stand there before our persecutors and defend our Lord, only pain will come to us if He wills it, so how can I complain about what He wills. If He wants to remove the pain and fear, then He will, if He does not, then there is something for me in that pain and fear that He is allowing for whatever reason. Think of the mystics who suffer the pains of His passion. They felt it and the reward for so many souls was great!
Well, Brian, It appears you have something in common with Pope Francis after all, ha! From The Tablet 2015 “Pope Francis has said he is very scared of physical pain and wants God to spare him that in the event of an assassination attempt. He said: "I have said to the Lord: take care of me. But if your will is that I should die or that they do something to me, I ask you one favour: that they don't hurt me," he said. "Because I'm a real wimp when it comes to physical pain". If fanatics want to kill him, it is “God’s will”, he said: “Life is in God’s hands. “ (As long as Padraig does not beat Him to it)
Not really lol! I just think it’s a funny quip. Can’t remember where I heard it. I’ve been through more serious pain than most will ever experience. Fortunately none of it was long lasting. But it was grave.
Feeling the pain is a blessing in that it can be united to Christ's sufferings; I'd be careful with anything hinting that dulling pain is a blessing (but yes, Our Lord will never permit us to pass through anything we aren't prepared for).
The biggest threat to leprosy patients is that they can’t feel pain. The bacterial infection that causes leprosy destroys the sensory nerves, but it’s quite treatable today with antibiotics. The long term effects of the loss of pain sensation causes the hallmark signs and symptoms of leprosy, not the bacterial infection itself. Pain is a gift. It tells us sometimes is wrong, sometimes gravely so. If a normal patient is too close to something very hot, they immediately withdraw their body part from the heat source. A leprosy victim might not feel the heat until they’ve suffered third degree (or worse) burns. And they become disfigured because they can’t feel burns or broken fingers or facial bones etc. and the bones get resorbed. The distribution of sensory loss among diabetics is very similar to that of leprosy patients. So a lot of the methods we use to treat diabetic foot ulcers was developed by Christian doctors trying to help leprosy patients in India. Yes, pain can be a blessing, in more ways than one.
A lack of pain in these situations is a lack of an ability to perceive reality. Christ suffered more on earth than anyone else who has ever lived; not just in his passion but in everyday encounters as well (as in emotional suffering).
These treatments were pioneered by Dr Paul W. Brand in Southern India. I was fortunate to do a rotation with him at the National Hanson Disease [i,e., leprosy] Center in Carville Louisiana in 1993. https://leprosyhistory.org/database/person31 Watch this video of a talk he gave at a leprosy conference, starting at 11:45 into the video. This was one of the stories he told us when I was there: We simply cannot fathom what leprosy victims endured, for millennia. Hearing Dr. Brand tell these accounts made the Gospel stories of Jesus and lepers come alive. Dr. Brand’s experience treating patients with severe injuries led to his view that pain was actually a valuable feature because when it functions properly, it protects us from more severe injuries. He wrote about this with Phillip Yancey in Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. “The book contains a foreword by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who said that if he could have chosen to be anyone else besides himself, he would have chosen to be Dr. Paul Brand.”
