More names added to the list of All Saints...

As I prepared to leave the house this morning to head toward church for Mass in observance of All Saints Day, I was saddened to hear of the death (martyrdom) of Catholics in Baghdad. (story here) The Church is being assailed by a secular culture here in the United States, but at least to date we are being spared the level of persecution that is rampant in places such as Iraq, Sudan and many other nations in which Christians and particularly Catholics live with a target on their backs.
We are called to be saints. Indeed, scripture tells us that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ. The crucifix serves as a reminder of that calling. A head crowned not with glory but with thorns in a mockery of kingship. The hands that set the stars in the heavens pinned to the tree in impotence, arms spread wide in love and in the emptying of self. A heart pierced and pouring out blood marking the very earth in the same manner that the blood of lambs marked the homes of those to be saved in Egypt.
I doubt that many of the 52 slain in Baghdad anticipated how close they would come to the cross as they gathered to worship. May those who paid with their lives for the faith we often take for granted inherit the promise of the kingdom and serve as an example for us as we remember all the saints this day.