How can we even begin to put our hands around this amazing story…our first reading from the Old Testament book of Maccabees? It’s unfortunate that in our version from the Lectionary only a portion of the story is told. If you go to 2^nd Maccabees chapter 1 you can read the event in its entirety. It’s a tragedy of epic proportions. The full story is that all seven brothers were put to death right in front of their mother for standing up for their faith…put to death by the Seleucid King Antiochus IV who styled himself a god. So the first son…again not in our reading of the story but right there in the full account from 2^nd Maccabees…refusing to break the Jewish laws on eating pork was boiled in a caldron…right in front of his mother and brothers. The second son was skinned to death and then boiled…right in front of his mother and brothers. The third…fourth…fifth and sixth sons…were all martyred in the same way…refusing to break what they held to be eternally true…the Jewish Religious Laws…to which even the king and his attendants marveled at the courage of the young men and the mother. As the seventh son…who had just watched his six brothers die…stood firm to his faith his mother spoke in their native language…Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months, nursed you for three years, brought you up, educated and supported you to your present age. I beg you, child, look at the heavens and the earth and see God and do not be afraid of this executioner, but be worthy of your brothers and accept death, so that in the time of mercy I may receive you again with your brothers. Then they killed him right in front of his mother. Lastly they killed the mother. I mean REALLY…it’s a story for the ages for sure. I suppose only you mothers could fully begin to grasp the dynamic of the event. And here I am speaking to you all today attempting to elaborate on something so painfully profound…nothing I can say can add anything or take anything away from this magnificent tragedy. That’s what makes it so compelling. It’s a magnificent tragedy.

Even though we will probably never face what this family faced…it intrigues us…pulls at our imagination while at the same time tears at our hearts. In the midst of our curious sympathy…maybe we even ask ourselves…could I ever do that…could my family have made such a brave stand for what we hold to be true…would I be strong as this mother and her sons were 2200 years ago?

Traditionally a tragedy is a story that presents a moral or historical struggle of an individual culminating in his or her ultimate defeat. And in that defeat…ironically…ultimate victory is achieved because the truth is protected at the greatest cost…one’s life. But what makes this tragedy particularly powerful is that it isn’t just a tragedy…It’s a Divine Tragedy. And that’s what makes it so attractive and so…oddly beautiful.

As far off as it sounds…it’s not so difficult to imagine this sort of beautiful tragedy in our own lives…particularly after last week’s All Saints Day…many of whom were martyred for their faith…and Monday’s Veterans Day…many of whom were martyred for what was right and good and pure. This kind of thing has actually happened in our lifetime. It happened to Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI...for anyone who was Catholic who lived through the horrors of the Second World War. In fact it’s probably why they became priests. This kind of tyranny isn’t a stretch at all. It happened to the Jews of Europe…to the Armenians at the hands of the Turks…to some of our men in Korea and Vietnam…it happens even today to women in Taliban culture…Tutsi families eradicated by Hutu militants in Rwanda…babies in abortion clinics right here in Central Texas. I know…it seems completely outrageous…and yet it happens more often than we think.

Let your imagination run a bit…the doors in the Narthex open and in walks someone from the government…he announces that all the Catholic churches are to be dissolved and they would be taking the tabernacle with them…we deny them. And seven of us happily volunteer ourselves…we’re bound…tortured…and then finally put to death…right out here on the front patio…just beneath the beautiful oak trees and in front of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It would be an unbelievable tragedy…every bit as dramatic…terrifying…and profound as this event from 2^nd Macabees.

It challenges us to take a hard look at one of the most important aspects of Christian Spirituality…Freedom. In many ways a very misunderstood and often misused word. What does it mean to be free? Somehow these young men and their mother were totally free. How else could they have made the decision to stand so firm to their beliefs in the face of impending calamity? They were totally detached from earthly concerns and completely attached to God and eternity. Maybe that is what is so compelling about the story. Maybe that is what pulls at our imagination. It pulls at us because…in some way…this is actually what we all want…at the deepest, most personal reaches of who we are we want to be Christian heroes too. Whether we realize it or not, we so want to let go of that which is fleeting and grab onto that which is forever.

The problem is…in America we’re easily confused….we don’t really understand freedom. Most people think that freedom is the power to choose a course of action or to make a decision without being subject to restraints. In other words, freedom is to be able to do whatever you want whenever you want. Think about the Secular world today…it’s based on the idea that each of us is fully autonomous…able to do as we wish…striving to become self made men and women…which of course is impossible…people don’t live in a vacuum. We are because of someone else…namely our parents and each other. So, this notion of freedom being the ability to individually choose as we wish without restraints is not real freedom.

So then, what is freedom? Real Freedom is the choice to live in the love of God, always seeking out the Good, the Beautiful, the True. This is what we had in the garden before the fall. Nothing else mattered…nothing else even registered on our emotional radar screens except loving God’s Goodness Beauty and Truth. Our task…the thing that these young men and their mother were so clearly able to do…is to set everything in our lives over top of this kind of Freedom. This is why St. Augustine wrote, “Love God, and then do what you will.” If we are really determining ourselves…in other words establishing our lives with this love of God and His Goodness, Beauty, and True, then all we need to do is simply what our perfectly ordered wills tell us because anything else would contradict God. That’s when the will becomes free. Love God and then do what you will. All else is a form of slavery.
I don’t know who these brothers were and who this last one was who died in front of his mother…there are no names given in the story. But one thing is for sure, they saw this world through the eyes of God not the King. That’s what sustained them in that very moment of decision. The only way this could have happened is if they were totally free.

We too are called to look at the world through the same eyes…the eyes of God’s goodness, beauty and truth. I wonder what that would it look like…what would the world look like if we always saw it through the eyes of God. What would be important and what would be superfluous….what would it be like if we looked at each other through the eyes of God? If we’re seeing things any other way then there’s a problem.

These young men from Maccabees today…with their mother…a magnificent tragedy. It’s magnificent because it’s Beautiful…they were totally free. Their entire existence was directed toward the love of God in Goodness, Beauty, and most of all Truth. In a certain sense, they died that day so that you and I could sit here this day and contemplate freedom. In the final analysis, they didn’t die at all…they actually became what they had always been intended by God to be. God has given you and me this very same freedom of soul…the question is…what are we prepared to do with it?