Tihamér Tóth recounts that when the Normans attacked Ireland, their leader promised them—to spur them into battle with a real incentive—that the first one to touch the island’s soil with their hands would receive the reward of the nearest county.
One of the warriors was determined to be the first. He was already very close to the shore when he saw that a comrade’s canoe was about to overtake him and touch land before him. It is said that he then came up with the following idea: he placed his hand on the boat’s bench, chopped it off with his axe, and hurled it with such force that the hand, after tracing a great arc through the air, landed on the shore. In this way, his hand was the first to touch the island’s soil. And his was the County of Ulster.
The teaching of this story is that “sacrifice is the way to pay for things that are worth it.” We should put aside the brutality of the act, since such a deed is not to be admired in itself since it is not worth it to cut off your hand to be the mayor of a county. Our hand, or any part of the body, is much more valuable than being mayor of a county.
However, the teaching is worthy in itself: important, or worthwhile, things imply sacrifices and those sacrifices are the way to pay for them. I would like to apply this teaching to a very important enterprise: being citizens of heaven. Whatever we must give up for the sake of Heaven is a price worth paying. In fact Jesus said: the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force (Mt 11:12). In order to grow in our Christian life, it is essential to bear sacrifices. The Christian life develops through sacrifices and cannot grow without them.
When we talk about developing our Christian life through sacrifices, we do not mean only some sacrifices, or only the sacrifices we choose to make, but rather we mean making sacrifices in all aspects of our lives. It is very common to find Christians who live a sacrificial life in a certain aspect, while not being open to making sacrifices in other aspects of their lives.
We must be ready to sacrifice all that is required—in every part of our lives–if we want to be one of those “violent people” that Jesus speaks about in the Gospel. Therefore, in order to be a “violent person”, or to do violence against oneself—violence here is related to sacrifice rather than being aggressive—we need to have a spirit of sacrifice, not just perform some sacrifices, even if those sacrifices are big ones. This spirit of sacrifice is usually achieved through the continual practice of small sacrifices in our daily life.
