Homily for Memorial of St. Justin

Homily for the Memorial of St. Justin

June 1, 2023
Thursday, Week 8 of Ordinary Time
Collect
Mark 10: 46-52
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

“Thru the folly of the cross, you wondrously taught St. Justin the Martyr the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ” (Collect).

 St. Justin the Martyr

Justin was a Greek philosopher from Palestine, born at the beginning of the 2d century.  He sought wisdom in the various teachings of the Greeks until the wisdom of Christianity was shown to him.  He converted and went to Rome to teach what he knew to be the true philosophy, founded not on myths but on divine reason, on the Logos, God’s Word.

Justin explained Christianity to the Roman public, especially the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius, in 2 apologies, i.e., defenses of the faith.  In one of them he describes the Christian liturgy of mid-2d century, which we clearly recognize as the same form of worship that we use today.

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives sight to a blind beggar.  With his sight restored, the man follows Jesus “on the way” (Mark 10:52), i.e., on the way to Jerusalem, toward his passion, death, and resurrection.  That’s the same road that Justin and his companion martyrs chose when they saw the truth of Christ and abandoned the falsehood of the Roman gods and emperor worship—well brought out in the Acts of their martyrdom, as we read in the breviary this morning.  Justin is reported as telling the Roman prefect, “No one who is right-thinking stoops from true worship to false worship.”[1]

So, in 165 Justin and others were arrested and condemned, like countless martyrs until our own time.

Those who see and adhere to the truth of Christ, which St. John Paul aptly called Veritatis splendor, will always have a price to pay for “steadfastness in the faith” (Collect).  We pray for ourselves and especially for our brothers and sisters facing harassment and persecution, that we may always “serve the Lord with gladness” (Ps 100:2).  Our steadfastness in a skeptical age, especially among the young, may help steady their faith.

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[1] LOH vol. 3, June 1 at Readings.