Be ready to suffer

"Happy are you when men will hate you, when they drive you away, and insult you, and reject you as infamous beings because of the Son of Man !" (Luke 6:22)

"I told you that so that you may have peace in me. You will suffer in the world, but take courage : I have overcome the world" (John 16:33).

If souls respond to a gospel that does not prepare them for criticism, mockery, rejection and perhaps ill-treatment, it is exposing them to serious disillusionment. The many trials to which the apostles were subjected and their end testify to the price they agreed to pay for the cause of Christ :

1. Peter (10-64) : crucified in Rome

2. Andrew (died in 64), brother of Peter : crucified in Patras (Greece)

3. Jacques Le Majeur (died in 44) : martyred in Palestine (a tradition makes him die in Santiago de Compostela)

4. Jean the Evangelist (died in 100), brother of Jacques Le Majeur : dies on the island of Patmos (Aegean Sea). He wrote the 4th gospel

5. Philip (died in 80) : martyred at Hierapolis (Phrygia)

6. Matthew (died in 61) : martyred in Ethiopia. He wrote the 3rd gospel

7. Barthelemy or Nathanael. : martyred in the Middle East

8. Thomas or Didymus : martyred in Calamine (India)

9. Jacques Le Mineur (died in 62). Cousin (or brother) of Jesus : martyred in Jerusalem

10. Simon The Zealot, half-brother of Jacques Le Mineur and Jude Thaddée, cousin of Jesus : martyred in Persia

11. Judas Iscariot (died in 29 or 30 or 33) : commits suicide

12. Mathias (died in 61 or 64) : martyred in Jerusalem. He replaces Judas Iscariote

13. Jude or Judas Thaddeus, half-brother of Jacques Le Mineur and Simon Le Zelote, cousin of Jesus : martyred in Persia

14. Paul (died in 67) : martyred in Rome. Assimilated as the Apostle of the Gentiles (these are non-Jews)

What price are you willing to pay ? A little rejection, a bit of misunderstanding, a little shame, a little criticism ?

Jeremy Sourdril