This month of June began with the Feast of St. Justin. At the end, on June 29, we celebrate the Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul. In between, we celebrate other saints such as John the Baptist, Charles Lwanga and his companions, as well as SS. Barnabas, Boniface and Irenaeus.

What do all of these saints have in common? Their friendship with Jesus Christ led them to shed their blood in witness to him. In short, they were all martyrs.

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” Tertullian said nearly 2,000 years ago. The world (and sometimes we ourselves) tend to think that persecution and martyrdom impedes the spread of the Gospel. But Tertullian’s insight gives us another perspective.

We are a Church of martyrs. The suffering and even ultimate witness to Christ by the Church and by the faithful always strengthens the Body of Christ.

We might think of martyrdom as a part of the Church’s past, not her present. But in our own day, nearly 100,000 Christians are killed each year, martyred, because of their faith.

Many of those deaths take place in far away and developing countries. We perhaps hear about such incidents from time to time. We then deplore them, of course, but afterwards we can be tempted to feel that those testimonies of faith have little to do for us here in the safe and secure land of the free.

Our Catholic faith corrects such a misunderstanding.

Each Sunday, when we recite the Creed, we say that we believe in a Church that is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. That testifies to our Catholic understanding and vision of a Church that is not a snapshot of the present based in one given place.

The Church is one throughout time and throughout the world. As a consequence, the unity of the Church means that all her members are united throughout the world.

If one suffers for Jesus, we all are part of that suffering, even if we are separated geographically. The martyrs, in their moment of trial, need to trust in our solidarity and prayers.

At the same time, we share in the graces given to the world because of the fidelity of our martyred brothers and sisters.

The witness of martyrdom strengthens us in another way. It witnesses to the clarity of truth.

Too often today we think of truth as something changeable, something that we decide either as members of the Church or as human beings.

It has become all too fashionable to think that each one of us “has our own truth.” That of course lowers and even abolishes common standards and norms. It weakens families and cultures.

But even more, it ignores the deepest reality that God is the source and the basis of all truth.

A martyr gives his or her blood witnessing to the power of God and to the truth that He has established for us. Martyrs remind us that there is a truth common to all men and women that we cannot change.

Their sacrifice reminds us of that truth, and that there are things worth defending and even dying for.

Think of how many of our leaders, our politicians, our celebrities, instead of defending truth and values, give in to the passing fads and opinions of the day. We ourselves are challenged, as well.

Our martyrdom might not be with our blood, at least not yet. But in our families, our neighborhoods, our businesses and our grocery stores we can be challenged to defend our faith, to stand up and be counted for what is right.

One hundred thousand of us each year make the ultimate sacrifice. Our faithfulness, even under pressure, joins us to the martyrs of June, and of each month.