I remember as a young boy (early 1970s) hearing of a Catholic priest in Albania who had just been executed by the Communist government. His crime? Baptizing a child.
It was impressed upon me that there were Christians in the world, in my lifetime, who were dying for the faith just as the early martyrs who had been fed to the lions did. In those days of the protracted Cold War the persecution was centered in the countries ruled by revolutionary Communist regimes.
In the January 20, 2022 edition of The Wanderer there was a Catholic News Agency story on the death of an Albanian nun who had secretly baptized babies during the Communist years (“Nun Who Secretly Baptized Babies Under Communism Dies at 92”).
Her name was Sr. Marije Kaleta. She entered the convent of the Stigmatine Sisters as a young girl in the 1940s. When the Albanian Communists suppressed all religion her convent was closed and she returned to live with her parents. After her parents died she lived alone and learned “to keep the faith alive in the hearts of the faithful, although secretly.”
“Thanks to the consent of the priests, I kept the Blessed Sacrament in a cabinet at my home and brought it to the sick and dying.”
Another important secret office she performed was the baptism of children which was strictly forbidden by the Communists. It was this work which particularly moved Pope Francis when he met her in Albania in 2014.
“I baptized not only the children of the villages, but also all those who showed up at my door.”
Once a woman stopped her alone on the road.
“It was a woman with a baby girl in her arms who came running towards me and asked me to baptize her.”
Sister Kaleta felt fear because she knew the woman was a Communist.
“I told her I didn’t have anything to baptize her with because we were on the road, but she expressed so much desire that she told me there was a canal with water nearby. I said I didn’t have anything to collect water with but she insisted that I baptize that child, and seeing her faith, I took off my shoe, which was made of plastic, and I filled it with water from the canal and baptized her.”
When the Communist regime in Albania finally collapsed Sister Marije Kaleta she was able to make her final vows as a Religious in 1991. Reflecting back upon the long years of persecution, she said:
“When I think of it, I wonder how we were able to endure such terrible sufferings, but I know the Lord gave us strength, patience, and hope. The Lord gave strength to those He called, in fact, He has repaid me from all my sufferings here on Earth.”
The testimony of Sr. Marije Kaleta, who died on January 2nd of this year, in the Season of the Divine Infancy, impresses upon us the reality of what an actual persecution looks like.
It is melodramatic and histrionic, not to mention unseemly, to hear Christians in the United States talk about how they’re being persecuted on account of vaccine mandates or face-covering mandates during a pandemic. Persecuted? Far from it!
May God in His mercy preserve us from the test of an actual persecution for the mere name of Christ. Without special grace we could not stand it. 
How fortunate we are to live under conditions which are only normally difficult for Christian living. We should make good use of the opportunities to offer things up and do penance in our present circumstances.