July 27–St. Titus Brandsma, Priest, Religious, and Martyr

Sculpture Titus Brandsma by Gerard Mathot, Pieter Bondamplein, Nijmegen, the Netherlands licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

We need martyrs! “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christians” according to Tertullian and also to St. John Paul II. The twentieth century was filled with martyrs in Mexico, Spain, Nazi-occupied Europe, Communist-controlled countries, and anti-Catholic dictatorships and governments. This has spilled into the twenty-first century as well. “Martyrs are revered with particular devotion by the People of God who see in them a living portrayal of Christ's Passion.”

Today’s saint was a “witness” (the meaning of the word martyr) to Jesus’ Passion in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Born in 1881, St. Titus Brandsma grew up on a dairy farm and entered the Carmelite order in 1898. He was ordained a priest in 1905, received his doctorate, helped found the Catholic University of Nijmegen, and taught philosophy and history of mysticism there. He also became a journalist, which led to his arrest by the Nazis in 1942. He was hand-delivering a letter from the Dutch bishops to editors of Catholic newspaper editors to prohibit publishing official Nazi documents and was arrested and sent to Dachau where he was killed by an injection of carbolic acid. “In 1985, Pope St. John Paul II declared Titus Blessed, saying that he “‘answered hate with love.’"

We need martyrs to show that Jesus’ sacrifice of love is lived out in the lives and deaths of his faithful ones! We need martyrs to bolster the faith of our brothers and sisters in Christ! We need martyrs to convert the hearts of those who oppose, harass, torture, persecute, arrest, unjustly convict, and unjustly imprison and kill! We need martyrs to proclaim the truths of faith, hope, and love in Christ Jesus! We need martyrs to be “a life-giving sap of unity for the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.” St. Titus Brandsma, pray for us.

June 7--Bl. Franz Jaegerstaetter, Martyr

World War II gave the Church many martyrs, among them St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (also known as St. Edith Stein), and today's saint, Bl. Franz Jaegerstaetter, an Austrian farmer who refused to fight on behalf of Germany.  Bl. Jaegerstaetter opposed the Anchluss, or annexation, of Austria by Germany.  He was drafted, trained, and then received deferments three times.  However, when he was drafted in 1943 he refused to take a loyalty oath to Hitler, was imprisoned for six months and was then beheaded and cremated on August 9.  His ashes were reburied in 1946 and he was beatified in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI.

There were Catholics in Germany and Austria who served in the German army.  Bl. Jaegerstaetter's own pastor and bishop also encouraged him to serve if drafted.  He refused, telling his attorney:  “I can only act on my own conscience. I do not judge anyone. I can only judge myself.  I have considered my family. I have prayed and put myself and my family in God’s hands. I know that, if I do what I think God wants me to do, he will take care of my family.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church guides us with regards to conscience:  "Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment. . . . For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God. . . . His conscience is man's most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths" (1776).  "When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking" (1777).  We are all called to form and follow our consciences just as Bl. Franz Jaegerstaetter did and let God guide us and give us his grace to do his will.

August 14—St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a martyr in the new age of martyrs, the 20^th century.  But as with all martyrs, St. Maximilian showed love, God’s love, in his martyrdom.  Imprisoned at Auschwitz, Fr. Kolbe volunteered to take the place of another prisoner chosen to be starved to death in retribution for an escape.  After two weeks with no food or water St. Maximilian was still alive when the other nine chosen to be killed with him had died.  He then was given an injection of carbolic acid, whereupon he entered into heavenly glory.

Some may say that the age of martyrs was over sixteen hundred years ago when the Romans killed men and women who stood up for their faith.  Actually, the 20^th century is THE age of the martyrs.  Blessed Pope John Paul II canonized or beatified 266 martyrs of that century.  The situations varied:  the Spanish Civil War, Communist persecution, the Mexican Revolution, Nazi occupation.  But each man, woman, or child died due to hatred of the faith or hatred of the Church.  Each also died forgiving those who persecuted them.

Blessed Pope John Paul II declared in Tertio Millennio Adveniente (On the Preparation for the Jubilee Year 2000) that, “At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again become a Church of martyrs. The persecutions of believers —priests, Religious and laity—has caused a great sowing of martyrdom in different parts of the world. The witness to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants, as Pope Paul VI pointed out in his Homily for the Canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs” (37).

Martyrs are honored as witnesses to Christ, as those who love one another as Christ loved us, with their very lives.