Dear Brothers and Sisters, In 1886, Charles Lwanga lived in what is now Uganda. He worked as a page (a royal attendant) for the King there, and after colonization and evangelization, he converted to Christianity and was baptized a Catholic. The King became enraged when he heard of his conversion and demanded that Lwanga make a terrible choice: either pledge his allegiance to the King instead of to Jesus, or be burned at the stake. Lwanga refused to renounce his faith and the King ordered that Charles Lwanga and all the other newly baptized Catholics be burned alive. Every year, on the feast of his death, an estimated half-million people gather in Namugongo for mass at the Basilica that was built over the place where Lwanga was burned alive. Today, because of that small movement in 1886, he smallest of all the seeds on the earth has become a movement of over 400 million Catholics in Africa. The fastest growing population of Catholics in the world is in Africa. One of the great Church fathers, Tertullian, said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity. Thankfully (hopefully), we are not called to be martyrs, but just like Charles Lwanga, we are all asked to choose between the things of this world, and Jesus Christ. The questions for all of us today are: to whom do we pledge our allegiance, and what seeds are we planting with our lives? Deacon Vic