Tonight, my parish will offer a special mass to commemorate the Chinese Martyrs, whose memorial we celebrate July 9. This is my homily for the occasion.

Anyone who saw the 2002 Super Bowl saw something unforgettable.

And it had nothing to do with sports.

It was held in New Orleans, in the Super Dome. The half time entertainment was Bono and U-2. There must have been 100-thousand people in the stadium, cheering wildly. Bono stepped onto the stage and the lights dimmed and the crowd roared and the band began to play.

As the song began, behind the stage a massive banner started to rise, coming up from the floor of the stage, being lifted toward the ceiling, hundreds of feet above. It was stunning. Because on the banner were the names of all those who had died on 9/11…just four months before.

And the music continued, and it went on for three, four, five minutes. And the banner kept growing, and the names kept going higher, and the list kept getting longer. It seemed infinite, like it would never end.

The loss was so enormous. To see it so clearly was devastating.

Sometimes it’s not until you see something in black and white like that, that you realize the totality of what has happened. Numbers are an abstraction. But names and details tell the story.

And it was that way for me, too, with the Chinese Martyrs. I didn’t really know much about them until I was asked to preach this evening. But again, as I read their stories, I found myself overwhelmed. The loss was so great.

But so was their courage.

If you visit the Vatican website, there are details about the 120 people who are counted among those martyrs we remember tonight. Most of them died in the 19th century, persecuted during the Boxer Rebellion. Reading about them, you’re struck by several things.

First, are the ages. So many were children. Three, four years old. One was ten months old. Some were teenagers, like 14-year-old Wang Anna…who refused to renounce her faith. Moments before her death, she cried out: “The door of heaven is open to all,” then whispered, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Seconds later, she was beheaded.

So many of them were also lay people. Mothers and fathers, even entire families. They were people like 18-year-old Chi Zhuzi, who became a Catholic at 17, and was disowned by his family. He was eventually captured and ordered to publicly worship idols. When he refused, they cut off his right arm. He still refused, declaring: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian.” He died by mutilation.

And about a quarter of the martyrs weren’t from China. While 87 of them were native Chinese – the first ever to be canonized — 33 of them were missionaries, from France, or Germany, or Italy, who went to China to proclaim the Kingdom of God…and met bloodshed. This is one reason Pope John Paul first announced this memorial on October the first, 2000…the feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, the patroness of missionaries.

But every day we are reminded: the mission goes on. And so does the struggle. Chinese Catholics today are still being persecuted – authentic Catholicism is essentially an underground religion. And yet there is such great fervor, and devotion. The gospel today tells us if a grain of wheat dies, it produces much fruit. I think maybe the blood of so many Chinese Martyrs has produced this fruit: a deep and growing faith among the Chinese people. We all pray for the day when their persecution will end.

So we pray tonight, in this church dedicated to the Queen of Martyrs, for all the martyrs of the world – and we pray, especially, for those suffering on the other side of the world. And we ask that the patroness of that great country, Our Lady of China, watch over them.

The Chinese Martyrs suffered greatly, in ways most of us can’t fathom. But we can never forget that we are people of Resurrection. Death doesn’t have the last word. And we carry in our hearts the beautiful words from the letter of St. John that we heard tonight, words that remind us they were not victims…but victors: “The victory that conquers the world is our faith,” he writes, “…and who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?’

That belief transcends all fear, soothes all sorrow, and gives hope to despair.

At the Super Bowl in 2002, the song that Bono and U-2 performed was called “Where the Streets Have No Name.” Bono has said that he wrote the song about growing up in Dublin, where everyone could tell who was rich, and who wasn’t, by the street they lived on. And the place he was singing about was a city where that wouldn’t matter anymore. All would be equal in the eyes of God.

It was his vision of heaven:

I’ll show you a place
Where there is no sorrow or pain…
And the streets have no names…

Our prayer tonight is that we may one day know that place, and walk those streets, with the men, women and children we remember this day, the courageous Chinese Martyrs who gave their lives for the faith they love.

You can see Bono’s performance from the Super Bowl at this link.