The Christian martyrs in all times and places perplexed the world around them, because they accepted their deaths with dignity, purpose, honor, bravery, and even glory. One of my favorite examples is St. Lawrence, who was grilled to death, and while he was on the flames told them, “Turn me over I’m done on this side.” When Christians were thrown to the beasts in the Colosseum to be ripped to shreds, they were often times the ones laughing at the Romans.
Catholicism accepts you just the way you are, but calls you forward toward perfection. To say I’m perfect just the way I am is a glaring denial of my countless shortcomings in how I live out my life. It leaves me no room for improvement, no way to grow and become even better, and that is not living, that is not freedom if I put that limit on the possibility of loving even more deeply. When it comes down to it, the modern individualistic expression is a copout that let’s me be exactly how I am without having to make an effort to be greater, to try harder, to love deeper.
So we as Christians need to learn a thing or two from our martyrs about true detachment. Are we witnessing to the Truth in our detachment, or glorifying self-serving individualism and “meh”? Are we allowing the world to get away with twisting the most powerful witness there is, martyring itself for the dull, boring, and flat? Or are we calling it through Beauty, Truth, and Goodness to transcend into the life wrapped completely in the love of God? Are we wrapped up so much in the love of God that we are ready to witness to the truth of Christ crucified and resurrected like the true martyrs?