Carmelite wisdom to encourage & inspire
St. Titus Brandsma was beatified on this day in 1985; we’ve translated an excerpt from St. John Paul II’s homily on his “inspiring motive and driving force,” the “commandment of love taken to extremes.”
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In Germany, the Discalced Carmelite family observes the memorial of Blessed Georg Häfner, priest of the Würzburg diocese who was martyred at Dachau on this date in 1942. His most famous quote, "We do not want to curse anyone..." comes from a letter to his parents three days before his transfer from Nazi detention in Würzburg to the concentration camp at Dachau. We have a translation of that tender letter in our quote of the day.
From the time he was an altar boy, Georg Häfner was very close to the Carmelite nuns in Würzburg, where he joined the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS), taking the name of Aloysius of the Most Blessed Sacrament. He sang his first Mass on 21st April 1924, having been ordained on 13th April of the same year. After having carried out pastoral work in various parishes, on 12th November 1934 he was appointed Pastor of the Oberschwarzach parish; during this period Hitler was coming to power. Häfner soon came into conflict with Hitler’s agents, since he would never use the typical Hitler salute, and always defended the doctrine and rights of the Church. He was arrested on 31st October 1941 and taken to the Dachau concentration camp on 12th December the same year. His letters from Dachau show his deep faith and his capacity to pardon his executioners. Finally, exhausted by illness and, above all, by hunger, he died on 20th August 1942.
Born in Bolsward (The Netherlands) in 1881, Saint Titus Brandsma joined the Carmelite Order as a young man. Ordained a priest in 1905, he earned a doctorate in philosophy in Rome. He then taught in various schools in Holland and was named professor of philosophy as Rector Magnificus. He was noted for his constant availability to everyone. He was a professional journalist, and in 1935 he was appointed the ecclesiastical advisor to Catholic journalists. Both before and during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands he fought, faithful to the Gospel, against the spread of Nazi ideology and for the freedom of Catholic education and of the Catholic press. For this, he was arrested and sent to a succession of prisons and concentration camps where he brought comfort and peace to his fellow prisoners and did good even to his tormentors. In 1942, after much suffering and humiliation, he was killed at Dachau. He was beatified in 1985 and canonized by Pope Francis on 15 May 2022.
On 13 June 1942, Saint Titus Brandsma, chained to a Protestant pastor, was loaded onto a cattle car and transported to Dachau. As he left the platform, he said: "nothing bad can happen to me, because the Lord is with me."
We simply need to pray diligently for each other
I sacrifice my days of suffering for my parish... with God's help I hope to persevere
It is as if they carefully expose that monastic garment to their Redeemer
I am quite alright.
Certainly, such heroism cannot be improvised.
I sacrifice my days of suffering for my parish...
I do not want to curse anybody, nor take vengeance
He proclaimed human dignity and the freedom of the Church, even in the throes of degrading persecution and death
How difficult it is for us
to tolerate an unjust verdict
"Oh, that this day we might realize the value God has placed on the suffering He sends: He, the All-Good."
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Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things are passing away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices. ~ St. Teresa of Avila
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