The evil and bloodthirsty ISIS terrorists murdered 21 Coptic Christian men on a beach in Libya yesterday. They posted a a slickly produced live-action video of this outrage to show the world.

In the header of the video they referred to their innocent victims as, what they probably considered a mocking epithet, the “people of the cross.”

Suddenly, what had been a series of monstrous horrors involving strangers a world away in both culture and geography became personal. These men were my brothers.

They were killed, not because they were enemy combatants, soldiers, journalists or aid workers who had traveled to this dangerous part of the world, but because they were Christians. Christians simply going about the business of their daily lives who happened to live within the scope of these barbarians.

When searching the Internet for more information about this unspeakably vile, shocking and unfathomable crime, I noticed the jarring juxtaposition of updates I sought alongside Twitter comments about whether Sarah Palin had worn her daughter’s dress to an event and promotions for the disgusting “Fifty Shades of Grey” books and movie.

Just as you will hear the recently bereaved wonder how life still goes on without their loved one, I was jolted to see such trash and trivia on the screen when I felt the world had completely changed with yesterday’s event.

This must be true of all of the people of the cross today.  Our brothers were brutally murdered because they carried the cross of Christ.

It is up to those of us who remain to pick up that cross from the bloody sand beside their lifeless bodies and carry it with us, boldly, until we join them in the presence of our Lord.