From the Pastor's Desk - June 28, 2025

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul. These two great apostles found their way to Rome, where they were martyred in the decades following Christ’s Ascension. One would have thought that this meant the sudden end of Christianity’s spread. Instead, the city that once used Christians as human torches and fed them to the beasts eventually became the home of the Church. The Church has a beautiful phrase for this reality: the blood of the martyrs has become the seedbed of the Church.

A generation after the martyrdoms of Saints Peter and Paul, St. Ignatius of Antioch would follow in their footsteps. While serving as bishop of Antioch he was arrested and sent to Rome for execution. While on the way, he writes a letter to the Christians in Rome begging them not to intervene to save his life. He desires martyrdom and for the people not to impede his greatest wish. As he expresses it:

I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless you hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to anyone. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice [to God].

Because of the heroism of Peter, Paul, Ignatius and countless others, the Church has flourished throughout the world, and “the gates of the netherworld have not prevailed against it.”

This Sunday at 2:30pm in the school gym we bid farewell to Fr. Stefan. Stop by to thank him for his faithful ministry in his two years at St. Martin’s, and assure him of your prayers as he soon becomes the parochial vicar at St. Michael’s in Silver Spring.

In Christ,

Fr. Dave