NOTES for 2 Макк 6:18-31
The story from the Second Book of Maccabees is difficult. Today it is very hard to understand the dietary prohibition against pork, and harder still to understand the readiness to die rather than violate it, if only because pork tastes good and has long since become part of our culinary heritage. But pork is not the point; if it were not pork, it would be something else. That is, something will be found that the Lord asks us not to do; we accept this and do not do it, yet in the eyes of the outside world it is absurd. If something cannot be explained rationally or clearly makes a person renounce a pleasure, it is immediately declared obscurantism and foolishness. Fine, you believe in God—then believe quietly. Why openly admit that you believe in the Resurrection and in the virginal conception? Why all this, when you could be a normal person? All that is required is to demonstrate, even formally, loyalty to the world and its opinion. Eleazar, glorified as a saint, therefore becomes for us a very important example to follow, showing how consistent a person must be in professing his faith.