I learned that Charlie Kirk had died seconds before boarding an airplane. In the shuffle down the jet bridge, I heard the mocking voices of a social media chorus reverberating from the screens of my fellow passengers, celebrating this man’s demise.
Disbelief, confusion, and grief for his widow and children washing over me, I did the only thing I could think to do, and reached for my rosary. I prayed for the soul of Charlie Kirk, for his grieving family, and for our nation. I prayed for the wounded students and the attendees whose minds are forever marred with the fear and trauma of that day. I prayed for the man who pulled the trigger and for all who cheered his “victory.”
These are the words I penned on that plane immediately following that prayer as I asked myself, How did we get like this?
How have we arrived at a culture in which a man who devoted his life to the pursuit of truth (whether you believe he got it mostly right or inexcusably wrong), is killed for his words—to the applause of an internet audience?
I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’s words, in the character of Screwtape: “The safest road to Hell is the gradual one.”
We didn’t arrive here overnight, but by a long journey of so many steps into a culture that approves of, encourages, celebrates, the hatred of our fellow man. Scripture tells us that harboring such hatred in our hearts is tantamount to murder (1 John 3:15). So is it any surprise that what we harbor in our hearts overflows to our hands?
This culture of hate has been on my heart lately, not least because I have suffered rejection for the sake of the gospel. For the things I write, I have been cut off. I have lost close friends, been ghosted, been cut off for the “company I keep” (I posted one picture with
at an event, who is, to be fair, a personal hero, but not strictly speaking a friend in the sense that she has any awareness of my existence).I am not alone is this alienation. Gen Z is cutting off ties with its parents at record rates. Many friends and acquaintances echo similar stories of “friend divorce.” And while we might point to cancel culture (chicken or the egg?) online rhetoric (certainly disturbing), or the advent of the “block button” (the technology of the age influences thought and behavior of the age) as the impetus for this phenomenon—and as agonizing as it is to suddenly find that your dearly beloved now classify you as toxic and avoid you like a radioactive waste product—we can be at peace knowing that patiently bearing these wrongs and persistently praying for our friends-turned-newly-minted enemies is precisely our call.
This is what Jesus promised us:
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. — John 15:18-20
No one is greater than his teacher—and look what they did to ours.
We may be called to give our lives like Charlie Kirk or the martyrs whose blood is “the seed of the Church.” For many of us, the call to martyrdom is not a roar, but a gentle whisper. Ours is a quiet martyrdom in the interior of our hearts. Love and prayer offered up for those who abandon, mock, and persecute us.
When rage threatens to overtake us, we need to remember who the real enemy is (see Chapter 12). The man who pulled the trigger, his online cheerleaders, and the loved ones who accuse us are not the enemy.
They are the captives.
They are the souls we are called to pray for, as the Church Militant, to fight for. Their liberation and ours are bound up together in Christ.
Remember the atrocities the early Christians suffered at the hands of Saul, who converted and became the pen of the Holy Spirit that gave us much of the New Testament.
Remember the rapist and murderer of Maria Goretti, who died converted, and a priest.
Remember the workers in the vineyard who, though entering at the final hour, received the same reward as the workers who labored all day (Matt.20:1-16).
God’s generosity baffles and confounds us. Where we would cling to a justice that ultimately leads to our own destruction, His mercy overflows—even to the criminal taking his last breath on the cross, even to the hands that nailed Him there.
“Father forgive them, for the know not what they do.”
Remember St. Monica, whose wayward son lived a lifetime as a prodigal, and pray that your loved one returns not only to you and to Christ, but, like St. Augustine, becomes a great saint of our Church.
Until they join us as fellow workers in the vineyard, laboring for their salvation is our vocation. This martyrdom of love is a hard call. It might even feel like the sharp pierce of thorny crown constricting our hearts. This hard call requires that we harden not these hearts, but keep them beating, even allowing their thorns to pierce us more deeply, that our anguish might be offered up for those who weave the crown.
It is a hard call, and rightly so: we who are the Church have the Fullness of Truth, and to whom much is given, much shall be expected (Luke 12:28).
Beautiful reflection. 🌹. I’ve been aware of the possibility of red martyrdom in our time for a while. I’ve collected much hate writing about faith in a secular newspaper. 🗞️ It is real. But so is God’s abundant mercy and love. ❤️