We who are alive are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Saints Cornelius and Cyprian whose memories the Church honors today were buddies who gave their lives for the cause of Christ in the mid third century AD. St. Cyprian, a bishop from Carthage, helped St. Cornelius who was the pope at the time to defend the faith against heretics. Cornelius died in 253 AD in exile while Cyprian was decapitated on 14^th Sept 258 AD. St. Cyprian was the first African bishop to be martyred and is the patron saint of North Africa and Algeria. The inclusion of the names of these two martyrs in the Roman Canon shows how highly they were regarded in the early Church.
Martyrdom in the early Church was embraced as a way of affirming one’s identification with the cause of Christ. It was, as it were, the trending fashion of how to prove the depth of one’s faith (there were many who although had indicated their willingness to undergo martyrdom, grew cold feet when they came face to face with the reality). However, this does not mean that those who willingly gave up their lives were suicidal. On the contrary, they had a good understanding of what they were doing. To the martyrs of the early Church, giving one’s life for the faith was the ultimate show of Christian chivalry.
In the First Reading, St. Paul, in his response to the Corinthians, confronts the paradox of his ministry. He reminds the Corinthians that the glorious life of which he preaches and in which they are being transformed is not fully attained in the present life. The present life makes it impossible to fully comprehend the glorious life because of the suffering and death experienced. However, they needed not to worry because that is how God works: it is this present life- with its sufferings and death – that God will one day transform into a glorious one. That treasure of the heavenly, glorious life was presently being carried in earthen, fragile, vessels. Perhaps it is such an understanding that the martyrs of the early Church had. They were not afraid to give their lives because they knew that suffering and death constitute the present life, and that for the treasure to be revealed, sometimes the earthen vessel has to be broken. Moreover, having shared in the death of Christ through baptism, they were convinced, and rightly so, that they were already sharing in his resurrection. The death of their earthly bodies was thus a mere “formality.”