Psalm 39

Psalm 39 is full of poetic expressions of the shortness of life: "You have given me a short span of days; my life is nothing in your sight. A mere breath, the one who stood so firm; a mere shadow, the one who passes by; a mere breath, the hoarded riches -- and who will take them, no one know . . . . In your house I am a passing guest -- a pilgrim, like all my forebears." The words, though they speak of the fragility of our life, still may have a bittersweet beauty for us.

(The inevitability of decay adds urgency to our appreciation of spring and the beauty of nature.) We see the same fleeting character of all creation evidenced in the cycles of nature, in flowers, in the seasons, in every form of beauty. We see it, more close to home, in the sudden and/or accidental death of a young person. But, no matter how much we take the words or events to heart, it is still hard for us to really believe in our own decay and death.

Rarely do such words, no matter how frail our physical being, prevent us from planning our summer vacation or a winter getaway, from buying a new suit or having the roof replaced. We can perhaps write feelingly of our mortality and the shortness of life but to really imagine our own death seems almost impossible. A psychiatrist reports that he has rarely heard a patient say, "When I die;" more often it is, "If I die." Perhaps the best we can do is attempt to be more aware of our fragility and that of those around us.

¡Viva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the King) were the last words Father Pro uttered before he was executed for being a Catholic priest and serving his flock.
Born into a prosperous, devout family in Guadalupe de Zacatecas, he entered the Jesuits in 1911 but three years later fled to Granada, Spain, because of religious persecution in Mexico. He was ordained in Belgium in 1925.

He immediately returned to Mexico, where he served a Church forced to go “underground.” He celebrated the Eucharist clandestinely and ministered the other sacraments to small groups of Catholics.

He and his brother Roberto were arrested on trumped-up charges of attempting to assassinate Mexico’s president. Roberto was spared but Miguel was sentenced to face a firing squad on November 23, 1927. His funeral became a public demonstration of faith. He was beatified in 1988.

In 1927 when Father Miguel Pro was executed, no one could have predicted that 52 years later the bishop of Rome would visit Mexico, be welcomed by its president and celebrate open-air Masses before thousands of people. Pope John Paul II made additional trips to Mexico in 1990, 1993 and 1999. Those who outlawed the Catholic Church in Mexico did not count on the deeply rooted faith of its people and the willingness of many of them, like Miguel Pro, to die as martyrs.

During his homily at the beatification Mass, Pope John Paul II said that Father Pro “is a new glory for the beloved Mexican nation, as well as for the Society of Jesus. His life of sacrificing and intrepid apostolate was always inspired by a tireless evangelizing effort. Neither suffering nor serious illness, neither the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away (see John 16:22). Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to him, even unto death.”