On June 13, 1679, Fr. John Gavan, S.J., along with four other Jesuit missionary priests, was accused and tried for plotting to assassinate King Charles II and overthrow the English government. Although no such plot existed, the public became swept up in the fabricated accusations, which culminated in a wave of mass hysteria.
For three years, Catholics in England suffered terribly at the hands of conspiracy theorists. Dozens of Jesuit priests were executed, exiled, or found dead in prison. Catholic laypeople feared for their own lives. Not a shred of evidence was found to support what came to be known as the “Popish Plot,” and several contradictions were found in the claims made against these men. The king himself did not believe the accusations, but due to the mass hysteria, he felt forced to order the execution of these Jesuit priests, a decision he later regretted. These were the most unjust and dangerous years for Catholic priests in England’s history.
Today, Fr. Gavan’s cause for canonization is being investigated by the Church. He is now officially a “Blessed.” So it is to one such as he that the Psalm quite literally refers:
BLESSED the one whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord, his God,
The maker of heaven and earth,
the seas and all that is in them,
Who keeps faith forever,
secures justice for the oppressed,
who gives bread to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free . . .(Ps. 146:5-7)
But where was God’s “justice” for Fr. Gavan? Of course, we understand Fr. Gavan’s justice, eternally speaking. The reward of eternal life is no small thing; it is what our lives here on earth are all about. But did the psalmist really mean that if we are oppressed here on earth, God will secure our justice only in heaven? It would hardly seem so. Are we really expected to accept a life of misery with only an intangible wish for heaven? Unjust oppression and lack of love are precisely what can cause us to doubt whether there even is a heaven at all. Without a glimpse and foretaste of what is to come, how could we possibly hope in that eternal future?
The answer to that question should tell us two things. First, we must understand the importance of never withholding love from our neighbor, no matter how offensive that neighbor might be. Our love may be the only glimpse and foretaste of heaven they ever receive, the only “proof” that keeps the hope of heaven still smoldering in the deepest recesses of their hearts, even if it is but a dim ember.
But our need for a glimpse and foretaste of what is to come also tells us something else. It tells us that the way God “secures justice for the oppressed” on earth is to be understood differently than simply His relieving us of all our trials. It is to be understood through the lens of the new wineskins that Jesus offers us.
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Mt. 5:43-44)
It is certain that in that moment before his hanging, when Fr. Gavan eloquently and convincingly declared his innocence, the parallel image of his unjust execution with that of Our Lord would not have been lost on him. This was a priest, after all, and a missionary, whose sole purpose was to give his life so that souls might be saved. It is true, he never set out to be executed. When others sought to arrest him, he initially took flight to hide from his accusers. But we can imagine that while he stood on the gallows, moments away from the hope of heaven, Fr. Gavan’s heart and mind would now have been fixed on Jesus, who was his refuge and his strength. And, as he imitated the Savior now, unjustly accused and hanging from wood, we imagine the words that would have spilled from Fr. Gavan’s lips:
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. (Lk. 23:34)
So how does Fr. Gavan’s tragic end translate into God’s securing justice for the oppressed? Clearly, the Church’s investigations suggest that Fr. Gavan would have met Jesus that day as he entered his eternal joy. But even on earth, God would have set His faithful servant free from oppression; that is, the oppression of fear. Fr. Gavan’s heart would have experienced in that moment before his death nothing but a total and complete outpouring of love. He would have gone to his death both grateful and humbled that God should deem His servant worthy to live and die like Christ. That is the power of Our Lord’s “security.” It transforms our fear into love, our trials into gifts.
The Lord’s security is one that made Fr. Gavan’s martyrdom even better than had he been released in a last-minute reverse decision by the king. A last-minute reprieve would have made for a great ending to a suspenseful movie, but the reality is, God knows the best possible path for each of our individual lives. Fr. Gavan could have been saved from his execution that day, but it is also possible that had he been spared, the love and forgiveness which he felt for his persecutors could have later rotted into resentment as he ruminated on their actions. Fr. Gavan could have turned “activist,” eventually treating his accusing brothers and sisters with the same hypocritical treatment that they had given him. We do not know.
What we do know is that as a result of Fr. Gavan’s execution, the public began to wake up to the horror of the many executions that had been perpetrated upon the innocent, and the hysteria and conspiracy theories finally began to wane. In the end, Fr. Gavan gave his life so that others might live. Fr. Gavan acted in his priestly duty on behalf of Christ, who the Father indeed sent to “protect strangers” and to “set captives free.”
You and I may not be called to the same degree of martyrdom as Fr. Gavan, but we are all called to imitate Christ and to give our lives for others, each in our own way. It is true, we are little, and we are weak, but that does not mean that what Jesus calls us to does not require great love. It cost a lot for Fr. Gavan to forgive his oppressors, but it costs us a lot to forgive too, does it not?
When we have trouble loving the one who gets under our skin, let us remember one thing: God sent that very person to us for a very specific reason. But what reason could that be? To simply test our patience? To make our lives miserable? Of course not. The Lord sends us those we find difficult to love in order to set us free! Because once we have learned to love all people—even those we once considered our “enemy”—we will finally see the hand of God in all things, and therefore, we will truly find peace in all things.
We will finally love others as God loves us. Our love will finally be just like that of Fr. John Gavan: made perfect.
Author’s Note: Excerpt from: The Safe Haven: Scriptural Reflections for the Heart and Home (Ordinary Time Weeks 8-14). To purchase, visit Amazon or The Catholic Company, where all other volumes currently in print are also available.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
