September 4--Bl. Martyrs of the Holy Family, Maria Stella Mardosewicz and Ten Companions

 Feast of Blessed Mary Stella & 10 Companions.

“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (Jn. 15:12-13). The Church has venerated the martyrs from her very beginnings, starting with St. Stephen and continuing even to today. Today’s blesseds were sisters who started a convent in Nowogródek, Poland, modern Belarus. They started a school, looked after the local church, and did works of charity.

At the start of World War II, Nowogródek was occupied by Soviet, then later, Nazi forces. The Gestapo then came and arrested 120 men. The sisters prayed that they may be accepted as an offering for the men. “Mother Stella led their prayers, in which the nuns asked God: ‘If sacrifice is needed, accept it from us and spare those who have families.’” They were arrested on July 31, 1943 with the intent to execute them that night. The sisters then offered themselves in place of the men, but were denied. On August 1 they “were taken to a large pine forest where an open pit had been prepared for them. They were shot to death and immediately dumped into the mass grave.” Their bodies were exhumed in 1945.

In his beatification homily, Pope St. John Paul II stated: “We thank you, O blessed martyrs of Nowogródek, for your witness of love, for your example of Christian heroism and for your trust in the power of the Holy Spirit. ‘Christ chose and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit in your lives and that your fruit should abide’ (cf. Jn 15: 16). You are the greatest inheritance of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth. You are the inheritance of the whole Church of Christ for ever!” Blessed martyrs, pray for us!

September 4--St. Rose of Viterbo, Virgin

 

The Communion of Saint Rose of Viterbo, by Juan Antonio de Frías y Escalante

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Which comes first, freedom of speech or freedom of religion? In the United States Constitution, both are enjoined in the First Amendment, with freedom of religion taking first place and freedom of speech taking second. But Pope St. John Paul II wrote in his World Peace Day Message of 1988: “Religious freedom, an essential requirement of the dignity of every person, is a cornerstone of the structure of human rights, and for this reason an irreplaceable factor in the good of individuals and of the whole of society, as well as of the personal fulfillment of each individual. It follows that the freedom of individuals and communities to profess and practice their religion is an essential element for peaceful human coexistence. […] The civil and social right to religious freedom, inasmuch as it touches the most intimate sphere of the spirit, is a point of reference for the other fundamental rights and in some way becomes a measure of them.”

Why is this important for today’s saint? Because St. Rose of Viterbo spoke up to support the rights of religion in her day. She was born in Viterbo, Italy about 1234 and when she was seven preached against the local government when the excommunicated German emperor Frederick II, who was at war with the pope, was accepted by the people in opposition to the pope! St. Rose preached against this so heartily she and her parents were banished. She told her parents that God rewards those who are persecuted for justice’s sake. Later she prophesied the emperor was dying and all would be well. He died shortly after that. She advised: “Live so as not to fear death. For those who live well in the world, death is not frightening but sweet and precious.” She died in 1252, at 17.