Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020

Have you heard of St Charles Lwanga? He was martyred at just 25 by the government. What had happened was that he and other pages who worked for the king had been evangelised by the missionary priests who had arrived in Uganda. This became a problem for the king, who liked to have sex with the young men and boys who served him. Charles become the head of the pages, and protected the young men from the lust of the king. When the predecessor to Charles was executed for challenging the King’s use of the boys, Charles, who was already being instructed in the faith, took 15 of the young pages with him to the White Fathers to be baptised. Once this was learned by the king, he immediately separated the Christians from the others, and sentenced the Christians to death. Charles slowly had his feet burned off, and still refusing to give up his faith, was then burned to death. So were all the other Christian pages. Let us ask him to help us love Christ even in situations of strong pressure and temptation.