89 discipline, there will shine forth the action of the Holy Spirit who “gives [the Church] a unity of fellowship and service; he furnishes and directs her with various gifts, both hierarchical and charismatic”. Faithfulness to the point of martyrdom 86. In this century, as in other periods of history, consecrated men and women have borne witness to Christ the Lord with the gift of their own lives. Thousands of them have been forced into the catacombs by the persecution of totalitarian regimes or of violent groups, or have been harassed while engaged in missionary activity, in action on behalf of the poor, in assisting the sick and the marginalized; yet they lived and continue to live their consecration in prolonged and heroic suffering, and often with the shedding of their blood, being perfectly configured to the Crucified Lord. The Church has already officially recognized the holiness of some of these men and women, honoring them as martyrs for Christ. They enlighten us by their example, they intercede that we may be faithful, and they await us in glory. There is a widespread desire that the memory of so many witnesses to the faith will remain in the consciousness of the Church as an invitation to celebrate and imitate them. The Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life can contribute to this endeavor by gathering the names of all those consecrated persons who deserve to be inscribed in the Martyrology of the twentieth century, and by compiling testimonies about them. Meditation A young Irish Religious Sister, Clare Crockett, SHM (1982-2016), who died a few years ago, had a premonition that she would die young. In the conversation with one of her co-sisters, she said that she was not afraid of dying young, but that she might die without having served or given all of herself and having not done the will of the Lord. These words of a young Irish Religious are worth recalling as we meditate on the life and death of our Marian martyrs of the communist period, Fathers Fabian Abrantowicz, Andrzej Cikota, Eugeniusz Kulesza, Vla-
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