Our daily liturgy gives us scriptures to read and saints from our calendar to celebrate. This week in our lectionary we continue to read from the Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews.  Today we remember Fabian, an early pope and  martyr, and Sebastian, a soldier saint and martyr.  Tomorrow we have Agnes, a young girl and early martyr. 

Our lectionary readings are not chosen haphazardly. After the feast of the Baptism we began reading each day from the Gospel of Mark, the first of the gospels to be written, an appropriate reading for following Jesus as he begins his ministry in Galilee. 

Commentators recommend we keep in mind who a scripture was written for as we read it. Many recent scholars agree with tradition that Mark’s Gospel was written for Christians in Rome who were shocked by the persecution of Nero around the year 34 and were struggling to understand where God was in that unjust experience.

The mystery of the suffering of Jesus and his suffering church is especially hard to understand. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” is the final cry of Jesus from the cross in Mark’s Gospel. His enemies, many ordinary people of his time, even his own followers found him hard to understand, Mark emphasizes.  The early Roman church heard this message from Mark, a disciple of Peter.

The Letter to the Hebrews, thought to be written in Rome after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70, also had the Roman church in mind. Composed mainly of Jewish- Christians that church had strong ties to Jerusalem and the temple. Less than 30 years after they suffered under Nero they watched the Roman general Titus bringing spoils from the Jerusalem temple into their city.   

The world they knew was shaken.  The Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews were meant to strengthen them in their faith.

The saints have that same mission. The three martyrs we remember this week are examples of the different circumstances in which persecution took place in the early church. Fabian was put to death at the beginning of the Decian persecution (250) because he was a church leader. The Roman strategy was to kill church leaders and their followers would scatter. 

Sebastian was a soldier saint martyred in the Diocletian persecution. From what we know, Christians were highly regard by the emperor when he first came to power, but then he turned against them,  especially the officer class. Like Sebastian, many of them holding influential positions in the empire were put to death for their supposed disloyalty. 

Agnes was not killed in a general persecution like Fabian and Sebastian.  She died because Christians were legally vulnerable in the centuries before Constantine. The Romans were suspicious of them. Agnes a victim of a powerful Roman man who used the Roman judicial system to punish a young Christian girl who  would not let him have his way with her. 

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” Where do we hear God’s voice today?

Certainly God speaks in the signs of the times. But God also speaks in the scriptures we read and the saints we celebrate. The liturgy is God’s voice, a voice for today.