Coolest martyrdom?

[Magrittes Pipe]

It's not as gory as some, but St. Sebastian getting all shot full of arrows sure was romantic. Some of those paintings are glorious.

Then again, it probably would've been cooler if he'd had his nads cut off with a piece of broken glass and his eyeballs burned out first.

[terrya]

1. For me...Joan of Arc.

She was burned alive, for goodness' sake. How brave was that?

[miss_kitty]

2. I have always been fascinated, since I was a small child

by the Macabees. I have some old CCD book almost 100 now, and I was glued to that page for days.

[eyesroll]

3. Jewish mothers, since time immemorial.

"It's okay, I can just sit here and rot while you go out and have a good time doing god-knows-what. I'm only your mother, why would I count?"

[achtung_circus]

4. This one is local and is not well known outside of Ontario.

The Jesuits ran missions to the Huron Indians in Ontario during the 1600's. The best known site was Ste. Marie-among-the-Hurons, located on the Wye River near present-day Midland, on the shore of Georgian Bay.

When the Iroquois came rampaging through the area, as part of the ongoing war that eventually resulted in the near extermination of the Hurons, several Jesuit priests were captured.

Pere Brebeuf was one of those captured. He was tortured to death. Some of the details involved having a necklace of red-hot hatchet heads draped around his neck and being burned alive in a fire. His courage and forbearance under this torture caused the Iroquois to pay the greatest honour to him they could. They cut out his heart and ate it- in order to gain some of that courage.

Martyr's Shrine at Midland commemorates the events.

<http://www.martyrs-shrine.com/story/index.cfm?>

[JVS]

5. St. Steven getting stoned.

[Wat_Tyler]

6. St. Chris De Burgh.

The man really suffered for his art.

[Magrittes Pipe]

7. It was inspiring how he was able to retain his chastity...

...after that incident with the woman in the red dress.

[Wat_Tyler]

8. Yes. Massively touching.