The first reading from Maccabees is the touching account of a mother who gives up her seven sons in death to a ruler forcing them to break God’s Law. The graphic details of torture the mother witnesses for each son would have been enough to break her resolve, but, she and her sons saw righteousness only in death rather than offending God by breaking His law.

In our own life, how many times have we bent or broken the law? Perhaps we have committed nothing quite as serious as murder, robbery, plunder, or domestic abuse. Yet cutting ourselves slack for minor offenses soon make us immune to increasingly bigger transgressions. Whenever we are tempted to take shortcuts by bending the Law, let us think of this mother and her sons who were faithful unto death. Let us remain faithful to God in small things in order to practice faithfulness to Him in big things.