Jesus instructed us to ask the Father that we be spared from tests of our obedience to God’s will. “Lead us not into temptation.” Though Our Lord could not have sinned, he set an example for us in the garden of Gethsemane while awaiting the arrival of the betrayer, and he encouraged the apostles to do similarly. “My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass me by.” There is a certain comfort in knowing that we are instructed to beg that our trials be bearable and that Our Lord himself did the same.

What then should we make of Our Holy Father Dominic’s strong desire for martyrdom? When threatened with death by men opposed to his preaching, Dominic asked to be killed slowly so as to merit as much as possible for others. His eagerness dissuaded them from murder, but his desire was sincere. Our Father Francis showed a similar eagerness, boldly preaching in Muslim lands even to the Sultan. Like the sons of Zebedee in the Gospels, they wanted to drink the chalice, but we cannot attribute their zeal to naivete or to having lived in a rougher, more brutal age. The teacher of the Little Way, St Theresa of the Child Jesus, lived in a privileged, comfortable time close to our own and she too wrote of her longing for martyrdom in the missions.

The resolution to this apparent paradox is in the second part of the Our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane. The desire for martyrdom, a recurring theme in the lives of the Saints, is the expression of desire to imitate Jesus completely.  Lead us not into temptation, because our own wills are weak, but if God’s will is what moves us we can do or endure anything.

Dominic never made it to Hungary or Poland, but he planted the desire for martyrdom firmly in the charism of the Order of Preachers.  Others followed him to those mission fields and to Florida, to Vietnam, to Japan, and witnessed to the Faith with their blood. Dominic’s martyrdom was incessant travel, ecclesiastical bureaucracy, unending organization.In doing those things he set an example for us to follow Our Lord completely, saying with Jesus not my will, but “Thy will be done.”