What's interesting is that the first time I heard the term 'immolation' in a Catholic context was in reading a book, The Latin Mass Explained, in which Christ's sacrifice and the sacrifice of the Mass are spoken of using this term. "[Christ] immolates Himself by freely delivering Himself into the hands of His executioners. His Will thus became operative in the external slaying." The lamb is killed and complete destroyed in sacrifice.
The word sacrifice is derived from the two Latin words sacer, meaning "sacred," and facere, "to make."
"Sacrifice is the highest form of religious worship. It is the outward expression of man's entire dependence upon God. This absolute dependence of man upon his Creator is expressed in the destruction, or change, of the thing offered."
During these periods of political and social protests in the U.S., we see this kind of resistance in perhaps less extreme ways. In lieu of self-immolation, the toppling of statues and the burning of American flags in DPZs is a kind of symbolic destruction--the goal being to completely raze the nation and rebuild it in their anarchistic likeness. It is hardly a sacrifice, in the true sense of that term, however, since it costs these destroyers nothing.
Christians do not self-immolate because the body is sacred and belongs to God alone. To do so for political purposes renders such destruction of Temples even more profane.
However, the Christian seeks to immolate his self-will--through prayer, penance, and mortification--through a dying to self so that he may more closely imitate Christ. Martyrs are made in the Christian tradition by dying for the Faith. While it is true, zealous early Christians in the patristic era desired to run headlong into martyrdom and seek it out and achieve the crown early, it is more the case that martyrdom finds us, not that we go looking for it.
We see a kind of cheap and easy posturing among Christians today for political purposes, to make political statements--whether it's blacking out a social media profile or holding signs in protest. But to lay down one's life for their friends, as Christ did--I don't think this is a step many are willing to take in the current climate for political change. The zealots in the first century desired to see Christ leveraged for this purpose as well, but the Savior made it clear that His kingdom was not of this world. "Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:6-8)
We cannot discount the political, as we are political animals. We cannot even discount either the dying for political purposes--that is, those in the armed forces, police, etc--for the preservation of the nation-state. But acts of self-immolation for the Christian are reserved for the subjection of the will, not the ultimate destruction of the body in suicide, and for the spiritual, not the political.
Because the body is sacred, we do not destroy it of our own volition, especially not for the temporal or political. Christ's sacrifice on the Cross was for our sanctification, out of true love for us--not to make a political statement or to exact political change. He did not rage against the machine (the Roman Empire), but set the example for us of immolation of his life so that we might gain Heaven which is beyond this-or-that temporal regime.
We should reserve our deaths for what counts, since we only have one life in this world. We cannot live apart from the political, but we cannot and should not die apart from the spiritual.
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