ABANDONED NESTS - END OF SUMMER?

 

                             Photo by our intern,  Emily Libecki, taken in herb garden in the bay tree. 

                                                (Note bay leaves inside nest (possible robin nest)

It is almost the end of summer,  (weather here has been so cool we actually have the heat on at night) and as we continue harvesting or beginning to clean up gardens, we are finding birds nests  in hidden places.  

It never ceases to amaze me what animals go through to create homes for their offspring- and no less the birds. Each species is unique, taking into consideration  location, size and number of eggs possible, and what materials are available.  Some birds build complicated homes, others of a delicate, intricate design, while others seems to just throw things together. It takes about 180 trips per day for anywhere from 2-6 days to gather materials and build the nest for many song birds..

To conserve resources, birds generally create nests that are as small as possible, which not only saves on energy from a construction and maintenance standpoint, but also creates a smaller, warmer micro-environment making  it easier to keep incubating eggs and new babies warm and dry. Some nests are used years after year, with a little fixing up, but many of our song birds just start all over again.

A wren's nest in the herb garden's peony.    Photo by Oblate Martha Conn. 

Note that in the United States it is illegal to remove or destroy any active nest from a native bird species- this would include hummingbirds, woodpeckers, robins, and jays.  If the nest has been abandoned or no eggs have yet been laid, it can be removed or destroyed as needed, but if eggs or birds in nest it cannot be removed. .

Years ago when I had a 4-H  birding club, we studied the nests.  Makes for great winter fun for everyone.  There are several guides to help you determine what you have found.

THE 12 STARS OF MARY- QUEEN OF PEACE

 

                             

Inspired by the teachings of Sts. John Paul II and Maximilian Kolbe, sculptor MARIUSZ DRAPIKOWSKI and Piotr Ciołkiewicz, president of the Comunità Regina della Pace (Queen of Peace Community), have the aim to bring perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for the intention of world peace across the globe

Piotr Pajestka explains “The objective of the Association is to promote prayer for peace during the direct encounter with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. We pray for the gift of peace for the world, but also for the grace to experience peace in our hearts.”

One way of accomplishing this is through "12 Stars in the Crown of Mary, Queen of Peace", a project to create twelve Prayer Centers in places affected by armed conflicts, lack of understanding between peoples and religions,  both currently and in the past. The first Center was established at the fourth Station of the Cross in Jerusalem, but has since been moved to the Chapel of the Milk Grotto in Bethlehem.

The 12 stars in the name refer to “the crown of 12 stars” on Mary’s head mentioned in the Book of Revelation. The monstrance in each of the eight existing centers for perpetual adoration refers to this image of Mary. 

Studio, a workshop run by the father-and-son team of Mariusz and Kamil Drapikowski, designed all the monstrances. “Our inspiration for designing these monstrances comes from reading sacred Scripture and the exegesis of St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict.”

The eight existing “stars” in the Crown of Mary, Queen of Peace are found in areas that have been ravaged by conflict, bringing adoration to those in particular need.

The second center of perpetual adoration for peace to be opened was in the Sanctuary of Our Lady, Queen of Peace in Ozernoye, Kazakhstan, near the geographic center of the Eurasian landmass and the site of the suffering of many peoples under Josef Stalin. Asia’s second center is in Dagupan in the Philippines, a country currently ravaged by terrorist attacks sponsored by the Islamic State.

The monstrances are now found in Namyang, South Korea. The Namyang Center of Prayer for Peace was opened after Drapikowski and Ciołkiewicz heard of Korean pilgrims in Medjugorje walking up the Cross Mountain on their knees to pray for the reconciliation of their nation. The Korean center took on a more concrete shape later, when Michał Rzepka, a Pole who lives in South Korea, and his Korean wife, Agnes, supported this initiative. Several months later, the world was surprised as the leaders of North Korea began talks with their peers in South Korea and the United States.

 According to Drapikowski, Father Francis Xavier Lee Sang Gak, the custodian of the Namyang prayer center, is convinced that the North’s slow opening to the world is related to the perpetual adoration set in motion in 2017.

Africa continues to be a land marked by conflict, and both African Centers of Prayer for Peace were established in sites of great human suffering. The first is in Kibeho, Rwanda, the site of Marian apparitions in the 1980s and the place where the horrors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide occurred. The other African site is located in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast.

In Europe they are found in  Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina. and Niepokalanów, Poland. This city is just outside Warsaw, which suffered more than any other city during World War II, with 85% of its buildings destroyed and most of its inhabitants killed or displaced.

 Two more are planned for the Americas, one for Australia and another for

Papua New Guinea.

Monstrances:

             Top -  Kazakhstan

             Left -  Niepokalanów, Poland

             Right-  Rwanda

             Left-   Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

MIRACLES of the EUCHARIST

 

Every time a Mass is said and the bread is changed into the Body of Christ and the wine into His Blood, a miracle takes place.  How many each day across the globe?

Perhaps few have heard of Eucharistic miracles, and if so, believe they happened centuries ago and yet the last few decades have seen a surge in Eucharistic miracles which cannot be explained by science. In most of these recent miracles, the Eucharist turns into human flesh and blood.

Modern scientists began a thorough examination of the miraculous substances, and in 1973, the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations began their own barrage of five hundred tests, which took fifteen months. The scientific tests revealed:

 The coagulated substance is human blood, AB blood type, with the same protein distribution as found in normal, fresh blood.

 (Image:  The Body of Christ- The Eucharist-Jerry Bacik)

The Host is human muscular striated tissue of the myocardium, left ventricle (heart); arteries, veins, the branch of the vagus nerve and adipose tissue all can be identified.

Like the blood, the flesh is also fresh, living tissue, because it “responded rapidly to all the clinical reactions distinctive of living beings.”

The blood is divided into five unequal-sized parts, and yet each part weighs exactly 15.85g, and all parts together also weigh the same 15.85g.

 After their tests, the Medical Commission of WHO and UN published the results in 1976, stating:

“Science, aware of its limits, has come to a halt, face to face with the impossibility of giving an explanation.”

We are more and more being made aware of these miracles, since there is more and more emphasis on the Eucharist.  These miracles have no scientific explanation but can be scientifically verified, and help us go beyond the visible and perceptible to the existence of something beyond, or even supernatural.

While there are hundreds of documented Eucharistic miracles, most were not tested with modern scientific equipment and methodology. In the 1990s, this changed, right as there was a sudden surge of Eucharistic miracles. The results continue to be astounding.

What are some of the miracles and why are we seeing them now?  Here are some which have been accepted as authentic.  Many more are still being investigated.

In 1992  in Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA, consecrated particles left on the corporal were put into water to dissolve and locked in the tabernacle, as the Church prescribes for disposing of consecrated hosts. One week later, they had changed into a red substance. Then again in 1996 after a consecrated host fell to the ground and was also put in water to dissolve, it was found a few days later to have turned into a bloody substance. Both cases were sent to be tested by the archbishop of Buenos Aires, who was none other than our future Pope Francis.

Dr. Frederick Zugibe, a forensic doctor at Columbia University who examined the Argentinian miracle, did not know the source of the sample and told the doctor who brought it to him:

“If white blood cells were present (in the heart tissue), it is because at the moment you brought me the sample, it was pulsating.”

When he learned the source of the sample, he was shocked and deeply moved.

 In 2006 in Tixtla, MEXICO, during a retreat, a religious sister who was distributing Communion looked down and noticed that one of the Hosts had begun to bleed and transform. The Host was sent for analysis. The scientific research conducted between October 2009 and October 2012 found that  the reddish substance analyzed corresponds to blood in which there are hemoglobin and DNA of human origin.

Two studies conducted by eminent forensic experts with different methodologies have shown that the substance originates from the interior, excluding the hypothesis that someone could have placed it from the exterior.The blood type is AB, similar to the one found in the Host of Lanciano and in the Holy Shroud of Turin. A microscopic analysis of magnification and penetration reveals that the superior part of the blood has been coagulated since October 2006. Moreover, the underlying internal layers reveal, in February 2010, the presence of fresh blood. The event does not have a natural explanation.

In 2008 in Sokolka, POLAND, a consecrated Host fell from the hands of one of the priests during the distribution of Communion. The priest picked up the host, and, in accordance with liturgical norms, placed it in a small container of water. The host was expected to dissolve in the water, which would later be disposed of properly.

A week later, on October 19, Sr. Julia noticed a delicate aroma of unleavened bread. When she opened the container, she saw, in the middle of the still intact Host, a curved, bright red stain, like a blood stain, yet the water was untainted by the color.

A piece of the Host was taken and analyzed independently by two experts in order to ensure the credibility of the results.

The results of both independent studies were in perfect agreement. They concluded that the structure of the transformed fragment of the host is identical to the myocardial (heart) tissue of a living person who is nearing death. The structure of the heart muscle fibers is deeply intertwined with that of the bread, in a way impossible to achieve with human means. 

Again in POLAND (Legnica) in 2013, a consecrated Host fell and was put in water and locked in a tabernacle. Two weeks later a red spot covered one-fifth of the undissolved Host. After the investigations, the Department of Forensic Medicine statedAfter the investigations, the Department of Forensic Medicine stated:

In the histopathological image, the fragments of tissue have been found containing the fragmented parts of the cross striated muscle. The whole  is most similar to the heart muscle with alterations that often appear during the agony. The genetic researches indicate the human origin of the tissue.

The most common reason for such miracles seems to be doubt in the Real Presence. Perhaps this is why Eucharistic miracles seem to have greatly increased in number in the last thirty years or so.

 Eucharistic miracles, particularly those involving the Precious Blood, really help to encourage faith and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. And just perhaps it is a "wake-up call" for all of us!

PUERTO RICO'S LAY SAINT

 

BL. CARLOS MANUEL CECILIO RODRIGUEZ SANTIAGO  is the first Puerto Rican, the first Caribbean-born layperson to be beatified.

He was born in 1963,  the second of five brothers and sisters. Two of his sisters married, while another became a Carmelite nun. His brother, José (Pepe) Rodriguez became a Benedictine monk and the first Puerto Rican to become abbot of his monastery. 

(Abbot Jose Rodriguez was born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, on March 19, 1922, was professed on July 11, 1959, was ordained to the priesthood on June 1, 1963, and was elected first abbot of San Antonio Abad on July 12, 1984.)

 After graduating the Catholic elementary school, Bl. Carlos began to attend José Gautier Benítez High School. His desire to become a priest was undermined by ill health.  At that point, he began to develop ulcerative colitis. After two years at the local public high school, he transferred to the Academy of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in San Juan. His medical problems, however, caused him to leave before graduation. He returned to the family home and continued his high school studies as best he could while working as a clerk, finally receiving his diploma in May 1939.

While Bl. Carlos was working as an office clerk in various towns of the region, he dedicated his resources to promote a greater knowledge of the Catholic faith by promoting a greater understanding of the Catholic liturgy. Using articles on liturgical subjects he had translated and edited, he began publishing ”Liturgy and Christian Culture”, to which he dedicated innumerable hours. He  organized discussion groups in towns across the entire island and worked with Catholic social organizations to disseminate his ideas. He also taught catechism to high school students whose study aids he supplied out of his pocket,  and he was a Knight of Columbus.

In 1946,  Bl. Carlos enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras  to pursue higher studies, where his brother José and sister Haydée were already UPR faculty members. As his disciples grew in number, he moved into nearby Catholic University Center and organized another Liturgy Circle (later called the Círculo de Cultura Cristiana). Despite excellent grades and his love for studies, however, illness prevented him from completing his second year.

 Nonetheless, he was a voracious reader and, with only a year's study, was able to master both the piano and the church organ. In 1948, he assembled along with Father McGlone, the parroquial chorus "Te Deum Laudamus".

 He zealously promoted a renewal of the Catholic liturgy among bishops, clergy, and laypeople. He professed extreme devotion to the liturgy and worked to repair the loss of liturgical customs that had been abandoned over generations. He advocated for active participation of the laity in prayer, the use of the vernacular, and the observance of his much loved Paschal Vigil in its proper nighttime setting, after centuries of having this service celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday.

One of his favorite sayings about this feast was Vivimos para esa noche (We live for that night). This is now the motto on his tomb, which is located in the Cathedral of Caguas.

Bl. Carlos  was diagnosed with rectal cancer following an operation in 1963 and died on July 13, 1963, at the age of 44.  His feast is celebrated July 13. In these days when there is so much talk of reform of the Liturgy, he is a good one to pray to.

LITURGICAL VISION

 

ISABEL PICZEK was an important Los Angeles artist. Many of her works are in public places, such as the exceptionally beautiful mosaic at the Catholic Cemetery in the Mission San Fernando, which was done in 1961. But she is best known for her study of the Shroud of Turin. Her sister, Edith Piczek, was also a noted religious artist. Isabel was still a young student when she began to visualize the possibilities of a new sacred art form - a new liturgical vision.                          

Over the years, Isabel and Edith described their “aesthetic partnership” in terms of a “mystical realism” which they looked upon as part of the modern visual and spiritual revolution in ecclesial art. The unassuming sisters saw their vocation as a “cultural and religious mission.” Their partnership blossomed and matured through the years. Edith was a frequent collaborator and Isabel’s lifetime companion until her death in 2012.

 Isabel, born in 1927, and her sister were born in Hungary, where  their father was a noted artist and art professor.  She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Just after the end of World War II, Isabel and her sister fled the Communist regime in Hungary and escaped across the border into Austria. It was a difficult and often dangerous journey but they soon found their way to freedom. After a brief stay in Vienna, they literally “painted” their way across Europe, traveling from one monastery to another, enduring struggles and challenges along the journey. At one point they wandered in the snow of the Alps for three days until finally finding their way across the Italian border. They continued on to Rome which would become their home for the next three years.

By 1955 they were in Canada and shortly after arrived in Los Angeles to pursue their combined talents.  They soon established their Studio, the Construction Art Center, in Echo Park close to downtown Los Angeles. It is here that Isabel  continued to live and create art for over 50 years. Her body of work is nothing short of astonishing and includes colossal size murals, mosaics, paintings, stained glass windows and tile works for over 400 buildings, churches and cathedrals in seven countries and on three continents.

In Las Vegas, Edith designed the 2,000 square-foot mosaic on the façade of Guardian Angel Cathedral that illustrated the roles of the Guardian Angel.

 Isabel created the Stained glass windows that portray the Stations of the Cross for the same church. The two also collaborated on mosaics and the windows for Holy Family Cathedral in Orange, California and artwork in St Thomas Aquinas Cathedral in Reno, Nevada.

Isabel created a 300 square foot figurative stained glass entrance for the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

In 1992, Isabel, along with her sister Edith, was honored by Pope  St. John Paul II in recognition of her prolific artistic achievements, examples of which can be found in nearly 500 different cathedrals, churches and other buildings across the world.

She became one of only 70 Knights and Dames throughout the world to hold the title Dame of Saint Gregory when she was admitted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great.

In addition to being a world class artist, she  also became an internationally known Physicist.  Isabel died on September 29, 2016 at the age of 88.

Images:  

Jesus Meets His Mother - St. Bonaventure Church, Huntington Beach, CA

Woman Clothed with the Sun- St Norbert Church, Orange, CA

Jesus the Divine Healer- Heart of Jesus Retreat Center, Santa Ana, CA

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ASSUMPTION

 

Assumuption - Bartolomeo della Gatta 

 

Prayer to Our Lady Of The Assumption

by Pope St. Pius X

O immaculate virgin, Mother of God and Mother of humanity, we believe with all the fervor of our faith in your triumphal assumption both in body and in soul into heaven where you are acclaimed as queen by all the choirs of angels and all the legions of saints; we unite with them to praise and bless the Lord who has exalted you above all other pure creatures and to offer you the tribute of our devotion and our love. 

We know that your gaze, which on earth watched over the humble and suffering humanity of Jesus, in heaven is filled with the vision of that humanity glorified and with the vision of uncreated wisdom, and that the joy of your soul in the direct contemplation of the adorable trinity causes your heart to throb with overwhelming tenderness; and we, poor sinners whose body weights down the flight of the soul, beg you to purify our hearts so that, while we remain below, we may learn to see God and God alone in the beauties of his creatures.

We trust that your merciful eyes may deign to gaze down upon our miseries and anguish, upon our struggles and our weaknesses; that your countenance may smile upon our joys and our victories; that you may hear the voice of Jesus saying to you of each one of us, as he once said to you of his beloved disciple:

"Behold you son," and we who call upon you as our mother, we, like John, take you as the guide, strength and consolation of our mortal life.

We are inspired by the certainty that your eyes, which wept over the earth crimsoned by the blood of Jesus, are yet turned toward this world racked by wars and persecutions, the oppression of the just and the weak. From the shadows of this vale of tears, we seek in your heavenly assistance, tender mercy, comfort for our aching hearts, and help in the trials of Church and country.

We believe finally that in the glory where you reign, clothed with the sun and crowned with stars, you are, after Jesus, the joy and gladness of all the angels and the saints, and from this earth, over which we tread as pilgrims, comforted by our faith in the future resurrection, we look to you our life, our sweetness, our hope; draw us onward with the sweetness of your voice, so that one day, after our exile, you may show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of your womb.

O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.

Amen.

DIFFERENT MARTYRS

 

Recently, we wrote of some Franciscans being considered for sainthood. Here are two more, both Americans, both martyrs, but with a difference.  One died quickly, the other a long endurance of suffering.

FRIAR WOJCIECH TOPOLINSKI was a Polish-American born in 1885.  I found no  details of his early life, but know he was a  member of the St. Anthony of Padua  (Franciscans) Province in America.  He had a doctorate in theology and held many prestigious responsibilities throughout his life; friar of St Anthony province in USA (from 1903), Professor at the Order's Theological Seminary in Rome; Apostolic Confessor at the Basilica of Loreto and St. Peter's Basilica;  and finally the Postulator General of the Order.

He was  postulator for the beatifications of Queen Hedwig, Card. Stanislaus Hozjusz’s and Fr Raphael Chyliński, and Bl. Kinga’s canonization.

He was also rector of St Francis High School in Athol Springs NY USA (1927),  and served as pastor  in  Shamokin PA,Lawrence,  MA, Trenton NJ, Milwaukee WI, and Buffallo NY.  

After researching and promoting the cause for Beatification of Friar Didák Kelemen in Hungary in 1939, he stopped to visit his homeland of Poland.  

While there the Second World War broke out and he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to the Sztum Prison Camp. on the 19th April, 1940, Fr. Topolinski was told he would be released, with the proviso that he return to the USA but instead was lead to the bathhouse and drowned in a tub by the guards. 

Having a priest in our own Archdiocese, whom we pray for daily, with the dreaded ALS, we have a clue how debilitating it can be.

FRIAR CAMILIUS DELUDE,an American born Franciscan, was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS) in 1993 and given only a few years to live.  Brother Camillus defied the odds and went on to live with this cross for more than two decades.

Br. Camillus was part of the founding Friars at Marytown at Kenosha, Wisconsin, and was part of the original crew to publish the Immaculata Magazine. After Marytown, he moved to Libertyville, Il,  and continued to work on the press apostolate.

He was always prayerful and never a complaint was heard, even as he slowly began to lose the ability to move. He was a dedicated member of the Militia Immaculata as a 'Knight at the Foot of the Cross', offering up his suffering and praying for the intentions of the MI, the Order, and the Church. He died in 2014.

THE COURAGE TO DIE

 “ On the Way to Auschwitz” ( Ignatius Press, 2010) by Father Paul Hamans writes:

“On the same summer day in 1942, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and hundreds of other Catholic Jews were arrested in Holland by the occupying Nazis. Of those arrested, 113 (several of them priests and nuns) perished at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. They were murdered in retaliation for the anti-Nazi pastoral letter written by the Dutch Catholic bishops.”

“While St. Teresa Benedicta, canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1998, is the most famous member of this group, all of them deserve the title of martyr. They were killed not only because they were Jews but also because of the faith of the Church, which had compelled the Dutch bishops to protest the Nazi regime.

 Among them were those who, like St. Teresa Benedicta, perceived the cross they were being asked to bear and accepted it willingly for the salvation of the world.” [From the cover]

One Jewish convert to Catholicism was  LISAMARIA MEIROWSKY ( MARIA MAGDALENA DOMINIKA), born in 1904 in Graudenz,  the daughter of the dermatologist Emil Meirowsky , who opened a practice in Cologne-Lindenthal in 1908 . After graduating from high school in Cologne, she began studying medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in 1923. In 1925 she went to Munich for two years to continue her medical studies.

 She also received her doctorate in 1933 from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. The title of the dissertation in the field of dermatology was “On the clinical picture of Erythema palmoplantare symmetricum hereditarium”. 

She then went to Rome, specializing  in the field of pediatrics. There she  met  the Dominican Franziskus Maria Stratmann.  She converted on the feast  St. Teresa of Avila, 15 October  to Catholicism and took the name Maria Magdalena Dominika .

In 1938, persecuted as a “ non-Aryan ”, she went to Utrecht in the Netherlands together with Father Stratmann . In October 1941 she went into hiding in the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Koningsoord near Tilburg , where she worked as a doctor and porter. 

On July 26, 1942, the Archbishop of Utrecht, Jan de Jong, had a pastoral letter read out against the actions of the Germans against the Jews. In response to this, on August 2, 1942, 244 former Jews who had converted to Catholicism, including Lisamaria and the siblings Edith  (St. Benedicta of the Cross) and Rosa Stein, were arrested by the Gestapo and deported.

 They were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp on August 7, 1942 and murdered on August 9.  One last letter, in which she accepted martyrdom as a granted grace from God, she addressed to her Father Stratmann.

 The Catholic Church accepted Lisamaria Meirowsky as a witness of faith in the German martyrology of the 20th century. 

In May 2014, in front of her last place of residence in Cologne-Lindenthal at Fürst-Pückler-Strasse 42, a memorial  was laid by students from a high school in Cologne.

 The April issue of Magnificat featured the  letter by Sister M. Magdalena Dominica on Thursday the 22nd (pp. 284-285). 

 

The April issue of Magnificat featured a letter by Sister M. Magdalena Dominica on Thursday the 22nd (pp. 284-285).

 You probably know that we are here and awaiting deportation to Poland. Tomorrow morning we move on. With me are two Trappists and two Fathers and a lay brother of the abbey. I want to tell you that I am full of confidence and completely resigned to God’s holy will. More than that, I consider it a blessing and a privilege to have to leave under such circumstances and in this way defend the word of our Fathers and shepherds in Christ.

If our suffering has become a little greater, our blessing is likewise doubly great, and a glorious crown awaits us in heaven. Rejoice with me. I go with courage and confidence and joy, as do also the sisters who are here with me; we are being allowed to bear witness for Jesus and to testify with our bishops on behalf of the truth. We go as children of our mother, the holy Church; we want to join our sufferings to the sufferings of our King, Savior, and Bridegroom, and to offer them in sacrifice for the conversion of many souls and thus before all else for the peace and the Kingdom of Christ.

In case I do not survive, you will no doubt have the kindness to write afterward to my beloved parents and brothers and to tell them that the sacrifice of my life was in their behalf. Convey to all of them my love and gratitude, and tell them that I ask forgiveness for every wrong and for the suffering that I have perhaps inflicted on them. Tell them also that my mother’s sister and my father’s twin sister went to the camps of Poland full of faith, trust, and resignation.

Tell Father Stratmann that he must not feel sad, but on the contrary join me in giving thanks to God for having chosen me, and sing a jubilant Magnificat. The work for peace we began together will come to consummation when, where, and as God wills it, and I shall collaborate as zealously and effectively as possible. Either through my insignificant suffering—and it is indeed nothing as compared with the eternity of joy that awaits us—or from beyond I shall always help him and stand beside him.

And now, sincere thanks for all the good you have at any time done for me, for all your merciful Christian charity. You have given me courage so often. Jesus lives in my heart and walks with us and gives me strength—he is my strength and my peace. May Mary protect you and may the love of God sanctify you always. Once again I humbly ask for your prayers and your priestly blessing.

In Jesus and Mary, Your sister M. Magdalena Dominica

Artist- Roman Halter (d. 2012) a Polish painter, sculptor, writer, architect and Holocaust survivor. He managed to escape from a cart while on a transport to Chełmno extermination camp. His mother, sister and her family died in Chełmno.