“We band of brothers”

By Tom Quiner

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM]

Today is the Feast of St. Crispin.

It commemorates two brothers, Crispin and Crispinian, who faced the same threat as the Iranian pastor I wrote about yesterday. These two Christian evangelists were told to renounce their faith.

They refused:

“Thy threats do not terrify us, for Christ is our life, and death is our gain. Thy rank and possessions are nought to us, for we have long before this sacrificed the like for the sake of Christ and rejoice in what we have done. If thou should’st acknowledge and love Christ thou wouldst give not only all the treasures of this life, but even the glory of thy crown itself in order through the exercise of compassion to win eternal life.”

The authorities stretched them on the rack.

They cut thongs from their flesh.

They eventually beheaded them.

On this date in 1415, the battle of Agincourt took place. England’s Henry V led his outnumbered troops against the French from whom they won a major victory. Shakespeare dramatized the battle in his play, “Henry V.”

The king’s speech to pump up his men is a gem, and dramatically delivered by Kenneth Branagh in his movie adaption of the same play. He invokes the Feast of St. Crispin. I posted it above. It’s worth watching.

Men can do amazing things when they believe in a worthy cause, when they live for more than just themselves, when they are inspired by a leader with conviction.