1 Cor 15:1-11 / Luke 7:36-50
To persist and to persevere is really hard work and it takes a lot out of us.
And if we were to continue persisting and persevering, then we also need to keep on believing in what we are doing it for.
More so if we say that we believe in God. Then our persistence and perseverance will be put to the test.
Today as we remember the Korean martyrs, St. Andrew Kim and St. Paul Chong and their companions, as well as the missionaries to Korea like St. Laurent Imbert, we see how their faith persisted and persevered in the face of persecution as they laid down their lives in witnessing to Jesus.
In other words, they kept believing till the end, but the faith of those Korean martyrs became the seed that led to today's flowering of the Church in Korea.
In the 1st reading, St. Paul urged the Corinthians to keep on believing in the gospel as it will save them.
Strangely, it was he who had persecuted the early Christians and he had Christian blood on his hands. But converted by the grace of God and also by the faith of those Christians, he preached the gospel far and wide and eventually laid down his life for Jesus.
In the gospel, we see another model of persistent and persevering faith in the woman who anointed the feet of Jesus.
She believed and kept believing in the mercy of God, and for that she was forgiven, and filled with love.
So we have more than enough of models of faith in the Korean martyrs, in St. Paul and in the woman in the gospel.
Let us keep believing, let us persist and persevere in our faith, and we too will experience mercy, forgiveness and love.