For A Greater Glory: The Fourth Vow Of An Ancient Order Of Friars

[Maximilianus]

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[b]Awes[font=times new roman,times,serif][size=3]o[/size][/font]me Responsibility [/b]

“This is an amesome responsibility,” states Fr. Joseph Eddy, vocation director of the Order of Mercy in the United States. “Every Christian, of course, must be willing to die for the faith if necessary, but our promise takes on the depth of a vow. And also, as part of our charism, we seek out captives of various kinds.”

Surely, it was the constant living of the fourth vow which reminded the Mercedarian friars that life is about the eternal rather than the temporal. Once that truth is internalized, it is only to be expected that great saints and martyrs would spring forth from the Order. One profound example is Luis de la Peña, considered a “Martyr for the Eucharist” in sixteenth-century Chile.

Father Luis devoted himself to the evangelization of the Araucanian Indians, and when he received word of an attack on his Order’s convent, he rushed to the church to prevent the invaders from committing sacrilege to the Eucharist. Rather than fleeing for his life, he consumed the Eucharist as natives rushed into the church, killing him immediately with their spears.
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