32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026 - Martyrs of Otranto - Wisdom, Preparedness, Courage

A few days ago, I came across a fascinating story about a group of martyrs called the Martyrs of Otranto.

In 1480, a force of Ottoman Turks laid siege to the town of Otranto, a port-city on the south-eastern coast of Italy, on the Adriatic Sea. Otranto’s town militia did its best to resist the Turkish invaders, but it could not withstand the attack. The walls of the city were breached, and the Ottomans fought their way through the city to the Cathedral, where they found the Archbishop, fully vested and crucifix in hand, pleading mercy on behalf of the town. The invaders beheaded the archbishop as well as the priests, and after desecrating the cathedral, the Ottomans gathered the women and older children to be sold into slavery. Small children and infants were slain.

800 able-bodied men were captured and told to renounce Jesus and convert to Islam or be killed. Speaking for his fellow Catholics, the town tailor named Antonio Primaldo is said to have proclaimed, "Now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for the Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him" The captives gave a loud cheer and refused to renounce Christ. So, the Turks led the captives outside of town, and beheaded each of them.

The town was eventually liberated. Over the next year, King Ferdinand of Naples joined with his cousin, the King of Sicily, to recapture the Otranto. The bodies of those 800 martyrs were gathered and placed in a gigantic reliquary in the city’s cathedral, where, to this day, you can go and venerate the remains of those courageous martyrs.

It was not until 2013, that Pope Francis added them to the list of canonized saints. And, at their canonization mass, Pope Francis spoke about their courageous faith. He said, the martyrs “refused to deny their faith and died professing the Risen Christ. Where did they find the strength to stay faithful? In the faith itself, which enables us to see beyond the limits of our human sight, beyond the boundaries of earthly life…Dear friends, let us keep the faith we have received and which is our true treasure, let us renew our faithfulness to the Lord, even in the midst of obstacles and misunderstanding.”

I bring up this story because I was at once inspired by it, when I heard it this week, especially in the wake of All Saints Day. But also because their story illustrates some important lessons from our Scripture readings this weekend.

In the first reading, we heard of wisdom, “Resplendent and unfading is wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her”. Firstly, what is wisdom? Wisdom is that ability to see things from God’s perspective and to order our lives accordingly. Wisdom sees sin as foolishness and folly. Wisdom sees virtue and charity as good and praiseworthy. Wisdom recognizes that some things are worth suffering for. Our Lord exemplifies this in suffering for our salvation. The martyrs, because they love Christ adopt his Divine Wisdom, recognizing that to win the martyrs crown is of ultimate value for themselves and for those that would come after them. Keeping the faith till they end, they help impart that wisdom for us—that we may keep the faith in the difficulties and temptations of our lives, so to share in eternal glory with them and with the God.

And so, wisely, we tell their stories. The martyrs of Otranto, the martyrs of Uganda, the martyrs of korea, Japan, china, the Americas, the martyrs of the early church, to learn their wisdom, to orient our lives to heaven.

We also venerate their relics. The early Church celebrated mass on the tombs of the martyrs—their earthly relics a connection between heaven and earth.

No doubt much of the world finds our treatment of relics bizarre and even morbid. A Cathedral chapel full of 800 skulls? A case full of slivers of bone and flesh (like those in our narthex)? The armbone of St. Francis Xavier, the teeth of St. Apolonia. But wisdom helps us to see the value in venerating their relics to help order our lives to heaven.

In our second reading St. Paul, describes how Christians have a very different attitude toward death than the rest of the world. He writes, “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope.”

Christians of course grieve when our loved ones die, and rightly so. Grief is part of love. When someone we love dies, we feel the loss. But Christians do not grieve like the rest of the world, for Christians experience death through the lens of hope.

We hope in the promises of Jesus Christ. And our hope is not just a fairy tale or a comfortable lie we tell ourselves to cope with grief and the inevitability of death. Our hope is substantial because it is rooted in the promises of Jesus Himself who rose victorious over the grave. And this hope, helps us keep our focus on heaven in the midst of our earthly sufferings. To quote Pope Francis again, referring to the martyrs of Otranto: our hope enables us “to see beyond the limits of our human sight, beyond the boundaries of earthly life” to the reward that awaited them.

Our hope—our wisdom—helps us to grieve rightly, but also to live rightly, to prepare rightly for death and the Lord’s return, which brings us to the wise virgins in the Gospel. The five wise virgins were welcomed into the wedding feast because they were well-prepared. Their wisdom and their hope in the Bridegroom’s return was paired with action on their part.

They brought enough oil to keep their lamps burning brightly in anticipation of the Bridegroom’s return. They actively ordered their lives because they knew the wedding feast awaited them.

And we are called like them, to do the same—to cultivate bright and living faith. And of course we do that in a number of ways. We cultivate faith by making time for real, quality, life-giving prayer every day. We cultivate faith by examining our conscience in light of the teachings of Christ and confessing our sins. We cultivate faith by allowing the word of God to truly take root in us by studying and prayerfully reflecting on scripture.

We may never be asked to give the kind of witness the martyrs of Otranto gave. But, for our sanctification and the mission of the Gospel, the Lord no doubt desires that their faith, hope, and courage animate our lives. Their courage to resist the fear of the sword is the same sort of courage we need to resist sin and temptation. It’s the same courage we need to go beyond our comfort zones for the sake of the Gospel—to share our faith, to reach out to the needy, to instruct the ignorant, to engage in new ways of serving the mission of the Church and our parish.

Let’s examine this week how well we are internalizing the wisdom of Scripture and the holy saints and martyrs, how well we are preparing ourselves to live out our faith when it is challenging, and what we need to do in order to deeper our faith, hope, and courage, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.