Love of Life Did not Deter Them...

Praying the Liturgy of the Hours is an immense blessing. If you’re unfamiliar, it is a practice that goes back to the Jewish practice of singing and meditating on the Psalms. Given that the early Church’s composition was a significant number of Jewish converts to Christianity, they continued this practice. As time developed, the New Testament was incorporated into the practice.

One of the Canticles from this week was a famous passage from Revelation. As our country continues its inevitable decline into political, moral, and spiritual madness, these words gave me pause:

For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who night and day accused them before God.

[The holy ones] defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love of life did not deter them from death.

Rev. 12:10-11

Our national identity is in question, and when this happens to a country, it often precedes cultural and political turmoil. The most recent elections have led to significant amounts of speculation:

Are we on the road to Communism, as some elections in New York City would lead us to speculate, or are we becoming freer as a country?

Are we a country that can see the imago dei across the aisle, or are we a country that sees our political opponents as domestic enemies?

Are we one nation under God, or are we a blob of people begging totalitarian boots to crush our necks because we cannot handle the responsibility that comes with the freedom to turn them?

Are we a nation that defends the right to life, or are we a nation of ghouls monetizing crises to profit from baby murder, the mutilation of confused children, and the systematic elimination of elderly disabled?

Finally — though there are more questions one could entertain — are we a generation of people that care more about the success and legacy of the next generation than we do about the success and legacy of our own?

That said, no political situation is perfect.

As Jesus taught, “The politicians will always be among you…” wait, that’s not right. He said, “The poor will always be among you…” In some sense, we will always have political disagreements because there will always be suffering in the world. The goal of any nation should be to decrease and mitigate suffering and, in some cases, eliminate it altogether.

But as each problem is eliminated, new problems are discovered. Politicians, academics, and atheists — but I repeat myself — will be perplexed by this fact, that suffering, no matter how good our political situation gets, will always be with us. That is because where there is sin, there is suffering.

When a politician like Jay Jones can have text messages leaked that describe his desire to kill his opponents and “piss on their graves” and still win, all without losing a single endorsement, the party that elected him is moving us towards revolution. The same goes for New York City, which elected a Muslim Communist 25 years after 9/11, demonstrating that fate sometimes has a dark sense of humor. The political image of the Democrats is no longer the Donkey, it is the Communist hammer and sickle.

Not to be outdone, the GOP has done little to effect change for the next generation. They siloed themselves off from the cultural battles of the world. They would decry pornography while simultaneously saying that Game of Thrones was the best series ever made. They abandoned their kids’ moral and spiritual development to the education system, both private and public. They believed morality and spirituality were “products” that could be packaged, bought, and consumed by their children, only to find their kid now believes they are a cat or a woman seeking asylum in the foster care system in California. They mocked people with big families, only to have massive migration come in and replace their communities and values. They praise God that they will be grandparents because most of their kids have decided to be DINKs¹ rather than adults.

They believed the lie that “Communism” or “Nazism” could never come to America because, well, obviously that won’t happen. After all, we are, they imply, too good for God to abandon us. Apparently, their argument goes like this: we murder babies, sell sterilization to men and women, get divorced, go to Church, pursue transhumanist procedures like IVF and Surrogacy, write killer worship choruses, and judge people who smoke and drink while encouraging diabetes among the faithful. If anything bad is happening to our country, it’s not because of our sin, it’s because Jesus is about to come back.

Obviously, this is a caricature, but as with every joke, it’s funny because there is a hint of truth in it.

For the Democrats, there is no greater virtue than being willing to sacrifice your life for the party, and for the GOP, there is no greater virtue than being successful while avoiding the social, moral, and spiritual conflicts of our day. This is probably one of the reasons many Christian conservatives don’t like Trump or Charlie Kirk. Trump demonstrated that he had the courage to fight the Left, even if he couldn’t do it perfectly or to the liking of establishment politicians.

Charlie Kirk is another example. Many conservative Christians clutched their pearls as Charlie Kirk spoke into a microphone, convincing people that racism is evil, they shouldn’t be transgender, Jesus loved them, and they should go to Church. Once he was shot, many “Christians” said that they could “see why it happened.”

One party sees the poor as a means to political power, and the other sees the next generation as a threat to their capital and comfort. It appears that Trump is trying to solve this problem, and it’s definitely the case that Charlie was trying to as well. But if Trump’s efforts and, in Charlie’s case, sacrifice, fail to bring virtue back into our political situation, a second American Revolution is inevitable. The lines that no one wanted to draw to prevent the Revolution will, as is the case in all revolutions, be drawn for us. We already saw this happen during the COVID lockdowns. Which brings us back to our reading from Revelation, “…love of life did not deter them from death.”

Russia: Love of God & Love of Neighbor

It can be tempting to believe that our escape from political descent into Hell would be a political party, candidate, or revolution, but it is not. Our only way out of the valley of death, in all meanings of the phrase, is through it. It reminds you of the nursery rhyme, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, “We can’t go over it… can’t go under it…Oh no! We have to go through it! Stumble trip! stumble trip! stumble trip!”² We must, as the scriptures say, overcome this evil by “the blood of the lamb” and a love for life that remains undeterred by death.

This is a hard truth of the Gospel, and no one can claim to “be ready” for such a call; all we can do is prepare our hearts for the day that God calls. This is the theme throughout many of Jesus’ parables, that we are waiting for His call, and the question posed to his hearers is, “Will they be ready?”

Let’s consider two examples: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a revert to the Eastern Orthodox Church and a survivor of Russian Communism, and Takashi Nagai, a convert to Catholicism and a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing that ended WWII. In their words, one finds a deeper understanding of the passage:

[The holy ones] defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love of life did not deter them from death.

Solzhenitsyn retells a story of an Orthodox woman standing up to Russian Communist interrogators. She had helped an Orthodox bishop escape via an underground network of Christians. According to a woman who shared a bunk with the old woman, the interrogators (i.e., torturers) interrogated her every night. As the guards shook their fists in her face, the little old woman responded,

“There is nothing you can do with me even if you cut me into pieces…I am not afraid of anything. I would be glad to be judged by God right this minute.”

There were such people…who did not return to their cell for their bundles of belongings, who chose death, who signed nothing denouncing anyone.³

This woman shows us the “two mites” of the Christian faith: love of God and love of neighbor. She risked her life to save her Bishop, and she loved life but was not deterred by death. But what of those who were slaughtered for their beliefs? What stories do we have of them?

Solzhenitsyn discusses this question later on in the volume. “What is it like,” he asks, “for people who wait there? What do they feel? What do they think about?” He continues,

The morbid desire to pierce that curtain is natural…And it is natural that those who have survived cannot tell us about the very end — because, after all, they were pardoned…

What happens next is something the executioners know about…However, even the executioner doesn’t know about everything right to the end…He doesn’t know about the very end! Only those who have been killed know it all to the very end — and that means no one.⁴

The ultimate question put to the Christian, especially in totalitarianism, is this: “Are you going to die for God, or are you going to die for something else?” As one wise father put it, “When we say ‘yes’ to one thing, we are saying ‘no’ to another.”⁵

The Russian woman demonstrates how we can have courage under intense pressure, and that our fear of God should be greater than our fear of man. Now, we turn to Takashi Nagai, who invites us to consider how God’s providence may lead us to be “sacrificed” for the good of others.

Japan & God’s Providence

Takashi barely survived the atomic blast that rocked Nagasaki. You can read about this part of his story in A Song for Nagasaki by Paul Glynn. But Takashi’s speech is more relevant to our current discussion, as it offers us a perspective on suffering that goes a bit deeper into the veil of suffering that most reflections are unwilling to explore. It is the idea of participating in the sacrifice of Christ for the benefit of others.

At the time of this speech, Takashi had heard that the atomic bomb was intended for a different city. But due to reasons beyond their control, the Allied bomber had to choose a secondary target. However, when they released the bomb, the wind sent it off course. Instead of hitting a military target, the bomb detonated over the largest religious structure in the Asia-Pacific region at the time, the Catholic Urakami Cathedral.

Many Japanese Catholics had been persecuted and martyred throughout Japan’s history. This Cathedral was a testament to God’s love for the Japanese people and a reminder that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. In a moment, all of that was destroyed, and thousands of Catholic Christians were killed in the blast, one of which was Takashi’s wife.

What is Takashi’s “take” on this event, which leveled his city, rocked the Catholic faith, and killed his wife? On the steps of the decimated cathedral, Takashi spoke,

I have heard that the second atomic bomb, calculated to deal a deadly blow to the war potential of Japan, was originally destined for another city. But since the sky over that city was covered with clouds, the American pilots found it impossible to aim at their target. Consequently, they suddenly changed their plans and decided to drop the bomb on Nagasaki, the secondary target. However, yet another hitch occurred. As the bomb fell, cloud and wind carried it slightly north of the munitions factories over which it was supposed to explode and it exploded above the cathedral.

This is what I have heard. If it is true, the American pilots did not aim at Urakami. It was the providence of God that carried the bomb to that destination.

Is there not a profound relationship between the destruction of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Nagasaki, the only holy place in all Japan—was it not chosen as a victim, a pure lamb, to be slaughtered and burned on the altar of sacrifice to expiate the sins committed by humanity in the Second World War?

Our church of Nagasaki kept the faith during four hundred years of persecution when religion was proscribed and the blood of martyrs flowed freely. During the war this same church never ceased to pray day and night for a lasting peace. Was it not, then, the one unblemished lamb that had to be offered on the altar of God? Thanks to the sacrifice of this lamb many millions who would otherwise have fallen victim to the ravages of war have been saved.⁶

Takashi’s perspective is hard to accept, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. We Christians often forget that we are called to imitate Christ, not to be confused with duplicating Him — something blasphemously impossible. Instead, whether we are in a totalitarian state or stewards of a free one, our obligation is to be disciples willing to listen to the words of Mary, “do whatever he tells you.” Should God request our lives, we echo the Queen of Heaven’s fiat, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”

The Call to Sacrifice

We Catholics have a distinct advantage in these situations and, therefore, a higher expectation. Like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, we are not without gifts for the journey. These are, of course, the sacraments, chief among them being Christ in the Eucharist. This Bread of Life is what gives us eternal life. It paradoxically enables us to love life and yet be undeterred by death; this is the narrow way, and few there be that find it.

As our culture descends into madness and division, we Christians will almost certainly lose political representation and protection. If radical politicians continue to defeat moderate and principled ones, the moderates will be displaced, and radicals will require their members to swear their fidelity to party and country. It has happened in other countries, and there is no reason it could not happen here. If it should happen here, we Christians must remain loyal to Christ and His Church alone. We must be disciples who say, “not my will, but your will.” As with all times of evil, God will choose saints to light the way, and we must be willing to accept His call to deny ourselves, carry our cross, and follow Him.

1. Double Income, No Kids (DINK)

2. From the children’s nursery rhyme, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

3. Volume 1: The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. (Harper Perennial 2007 New York). 131.

4. Ibid. 443-444.

5. This father is not a Church father, but my actual dad. He’s a pretty smart guy!

6. From “Dr. Takashi Nagai’s Funeral Address.” accessed 11-08-2025.