Say what you will about the faults of evangelism, but no one can deny that these martyrs loved Jesus beyond our imagination to suffer unfathomable torture and yet not betray their faith in their Lord. To meditate on their deaths induces chills down the spine.

Forget not that Jesus too could have defended himself before Pilate. But he stood silent, knowing and accepting his fate, abandoned by the very disciples who would then go on to their own martyrdom – perhaps amending their own souls in the profound act of forfeiting their bodies, their self-induced penance for forsaking Jesus at the moment it counted. A down payment on the price of entering the Kingdom of God which Jesus promised them. What indescribable sorrow they must have felt. But Jesus put no price on admission, save to love God and to love others. These men did love God, and they demonstrated their love of humanity and their faith in man’s redemption through the Word of Jesus – in the face of every unspeakable evil heaped upon them.

Heroes, all.