Courage has always been an aspect of witness to Christ. In my own land we celebrate the martyrs of England and Wales – 242 blessed, 42 canonised men and women, priests and lay people, plus many others unknown – who stayed faithful to the Church and the true Mass when the nation’s monarchs tried to impose the Church of England. One of the greatest among them is St Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor who dared to oppose the king and lost his head for doing so. So great was his courage and trust in God that even with his head on the block he could crack a joke. When his beard, which had grown while he was in prison, got caught on the block, he asked the executioner for a moment to free it as, having grown after the sentence of condemnation, it was not strictly speaking deserving of death!

But martyrs can be found in many countries. I am inspired by the example of such young martyrs as Saints Ann Wang and Chi Zhuzi in China. Ann was a 14-year-old girl who was killed during the Boxer Rebellion when she refused to renounce her faith. She bravely withstood the threats of her torturers, and just as she was about to be beheaded, she declared, “The door of heaven is open to all,” and repeated the name of Jesus three times. Chi Zhuzi was aged 18 and preparing to receive Baptism when he was caught on the road one night and ordered to worship idols. He refused to do so, revealing his belief in Christ. His right arm was cut off and he was tortured, but he would not deny his faith. Rather, he fearlessly pronounced to his captors, before being flayed alive:

But we know that we will only be capable of courage in such extreme moments if we live it out in the ordinary things of life. Courage is lived in little things: the effort to get out of bed quickly when the alarm rings, to do that piece of work when we don’t feel like it, to eat what we don’t like without making a fuss, to stand up for our faith or moral values and not cowardly to keep quiet, and many other examples. There’s also a lot of courage in not complaining, the strength to accept difficult things. Complaining reveals moral weakness.

One of my favourite poems is the brilliant (but long) work by the 19th century Englishman Gerard Manley Hopkins (who was also, by the way, a convert to Catholicism and later became a Jesuit priest), ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’. But I warn you, it’s no easy read. When Robert Bridges, himself a major poet and Hopkins’ great friend, first received and read it, he wrote to Gerard that he would ‘not for any money read [the] poem again’. Hopkins wrote back to him begging him to read it again if not for money, then for love. Bridges did and eventually was responsible, albeit after Hopkins’ death, for getting his friend’s poetry published, though in his introduction to the collection he described this ode as ‘a great dragon folded in the gate’ of Hopkins’s work.

The poem describes a true event: the shipwreck of a vessel which had left Germany and which contained five nuns, all forced to go into exile because of anti-Christian persecution at the time in that country. The nuns died in the wreck but not before one – ‘a lioness arose breasting the babble,/ A prophetess towered in the tumult’ – was heard crying: “O Christ, Christ, come quickly”. Hopkins saw the ship’s wreck as a metaphor for the wrecked state of England following its rejection of the Catholic Church in the 16th century. Compared to the nun’s courage, Hopkins saw himself as ‘soft sift/ In an hourglass’ (for ‘sift’ read ‘sand’), he felt the seams of weakness running through him: he was sand not rock. Though in fact, in his own way and while suffering from exile and a sense of desolation, Hopkins remained faithful to his own vocation as a priest to the end and so showed his own strength.

Because God knows we are so weak he gives us, through the Holy Spirit, both the infused virtue and the gift of fortitude (that is, moral and spiritual strength). The Spirit can give us a strength which we know is beyond our own. A preface for the Mass for Martyrs praises God saying: “on the feeble [you] bestow strength to bear you witness.” When we feel weak we can turn to the Spirit for the strength we lack. If we keep on struggling and don’t give up, starting again as many times as we need to, little by little God will turn our weakness into strength and the Virgin Mary will win for us the grace to stand bravely with her at the foot of the Cross.

In short:

• Definition: courage, also called fortitude, is strength in the face of difficulty, from extreme moments to small, everyday decisions.
• Young saints: the martyrs show us that real courage is rooted in Christ. At fourteen, St. Ann Wang refused to give up her faith, even when she was tortured. Before she died, she said, “The door of heaven is open to all.”
• Books & movies: In The Wreck of the Deutschland, Gerard Manley Hopkins describes a shipwreck and the cry of a nun facing death: “O Christ, Christ, come quickly.” Her voice rises like a lioness in the storm, and Hopkins found her example of courage humbling. He felt weak like sand, not strong as a rock, but he still stayed faithful to his vocation. In a quiet way, that’s an act of courage too.
• From St. Josemaría: “You want to be strong? Then first realise that you are very weak. After that, trust in Christ, your Father, your Brother, your Teacher. He makes us strong, entrusting to us the means with which to conquer — the sacraments. Live them!” (The Forge, no. 643). More here.
• Practical tips:
  • Like courageously in little things, like getting up when it’s hard or eating a bit of something you don’t like.
  • Speak up for your faith and your values.
  • Resist the urge to complain, which can be a type of cowardice.
  • Ask the Holy Spirit for strength. Fortitude is a gift, and God gives it especially when you’re feeling weak.