Episode 506 - Where is our hope, where is our crown?

<p><a href="https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2maccabees/7?1">2 Mc 7:1, 20-31</a></p> <p>It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested<br> and tortured with whips and scourges by the king,<br> to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.</p> <p>Most admirable and worthy of everlasting remembrance was the mother,<br> who saw her seven sons perish in a single day,<br> yet bore it courageously because of her hope in the Lord.<br> Filled with a noble spirit that stirred her womanly heart with manly courage,<br> she exhorted each of them<br> in the language of their ancestors with these words:<br> “I do not know how you came into existence in my womb;<br> it was not I who gave you the breath of life,<br> nor was it I who set in order<br> the elements of which each of you is composed.<br> Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe<br> who shapes each man’s beginning,<br> as he brings about the origin of everything,<br> he, in his mercy,<br> will give you back both breath and life,<br> because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law.”</p> <p>Antiochus, suspecting insult in her words,<br> thought he was being ridiculed.<br> As the youngest brother was still alive, the king appealed to him,<br> not with mere words, but with promises on oath,<br> to make him rich and happy if he would abandon his ancestral customs:<br> he would make him his Friend<br> and entrust him with high office.<br> When the youth paid no attention to him at all,<br> the king appealed to the mother,<br> urging her to advise her boy to save his life.<br> After he had urged her for a long time,<br> she went through the motions of persuading her son.<br> In derision of the cruel tyrant,<br> she leaned over close to her son and said in their native language:<br> “Son, have pity on me, who carried you in my womb for nine months,<br> nursed you for three years, brought you up,<br> educated and supported you to your present age.<br> I beg you, child, to look at the heavens and the earth<br> and see all that is in t