Martyrdom
This, the basis for sanctification of many of the most memorable saints, (who, after all, could forget saint bartholemew, immortalized in stone with his skin draped over a shoulder in il Duomo of Milan; Or the over 130 cephalophore saints, appearing in all the visual finery to children's holy visions headless -- yet a divine sight, not a gory one.) and similar sacrifice is present in the deeds of all saints. From a catholic perspective, physical committment to a holy cause is quite a common request. There is a risk of american catholics (especially, not solely,) to conflate the church's call to committment to the point of physical harm with the unholy call of capitalism for us to do the same.
As we inhabit the material world (either in anticipation of eternal life elsewhere or not, -see thoughts on calls to materialism as supported by the bible [not written yet]) and are mortal beings, our physical bodies will be/are being sacrificed continually. We may choose to see this as an opportunity for saintlyness, and to direct our physical impact on the world towards the divine. To be rational with our committment, and choose not to seek death, but to commit completely to being a conduit between heaven and earth. If, like the martyred saints, this means we must be killed, then so be it. But long-term committment will be of the greater impact in many of our cases.
It is therefore crucial to discern between the calls for martyrdom of the holy and of the unholy. To reject the call to sacrifice your physical self at the behest of capitalism and its manifesting of satan on earth. In studying the saints, one must be vigilant, and inform oneself of the social and political attitudes of the sanctifying church. The catholic church that sanctified mother theresa is not the same catholic church who sanctified st francis. Equally one ought to study material and materially-derived causes for worldly conflict, and not allow one's mortal hours to be claimed by the allure (or imposition) of capital's desires.
Very welcome to futher comment and rumination
