The various paganisms became external cults and superstitions, creating a spiritual vacuum. It was this emptying that allowed the rise of Christianity in antiquity, and it is the current secular emptying of the West that opens space for the growth of Islam today. When I say that Christianity held back Muslim expansion, I am referring exclusively to the Middle Ages; the West today is not Christian, religion has been sidelined, and just as paganism degenerated, Christianity has too, returning to the attitudes of this and other popes.
This event carries a very interesting message. Operating at the lowest levels with the belief that they held material power in their hands, the Islamic State attempted to turn the act into a humiliation. But the spiritual superiority of the 21 martyrs transformed the entire spectacle into a sacred ritual—simple men who, despite everything, formed a spiritual cord that drew Matthew Ayariga, the twenty-first martyr, to the Source, claiming the baptism of blood for himself. They remind us of the meaning of human life, the connection to the Source, by denying worldly life and thus achieving spiritual victory.
"Allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ." - Saint Ignatius of Antioch