Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Bold words in today’s Gospel from Jesus:
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (John 10:37-38)
There’s breathtaking personal spiritual indifference in that statement, amazing 
diminishment of self for the glory of God.
That faithful surrender of ego and physical life didn’t end with the Resurrection. Thousands, perhaps millions, of martyrs in the past two thousand years have gone to their deaths in the same spirit, valiantly offering up their lives when they were commanded to do something other than perform the Father’s works and deny his presence in them. And they continue to do so today.
Consider the story of one such person, Blessed Agnes Phila, one of the Martyrs of Thailand. In December 1940, the thirty-one-year-old sister of the Lovers of the Holy Cross Congregation was among those ordered to stop talking about Jesus; it was believed (wrongly) that they were spying for the French. After a combative discussion with authorities, including the threat of execution, Agnes wrote a letter to the town’s police chief that read in part:
We are asking you to carry out your order with us. Please do not delay any longer. Please carry out your order. Please open the door of heaven to us … we are well prepared. … We keep your commands, oh God, we wish to be witnesses to you, dear God.
Agnes and six of her companions were executed that month. It is said that she did not die initially, and instructed those who found her to bring back the police and complete the order. She told them she would pray for them. Bold words, spoken from a small but mighty champion. May we all be as confident when what we do in his name is challenged.
