JOYOUS ART- IN THE UKRAINE

 

We have not forgotten the Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers, in the midst of another war, in the Holy Land. So many people right now are asking for prayers. We are all effected by what is happening, and the suffering of others weighs on our hearts.

 Here is a Ukrainian artist  who brings joy to my heart in her colorful work.

 VERA IVANOVNA BARINOVA-KULEBA was born in 1938 in the small village of Rymarivkа in the Poltava region of the Ukraine. She Graduated from Kyiv state art institute in 1965. Studied in the creative workshops of the Academy of arts of the USSR.

 A graduate of Kiev Art Institute, Vera started in Social Realism, before becoming one of the leading artists in post-Soviet Ukraine; her works represent a fusion of the modern and the timeless in Ukrainian folk life.

Since 1994, she has been a professor at the National Academy of Art and Architecture. Her works hang in the National Art Museum and have been exhibited in Switzerland, France, USA, Russia, Germany, and Britain. Several of her paintings were offered for sale at Christie's, London in 1990.

THE WHITE ROSE- MARTYR

SERVANT OF GOD WILLI GRAF was a German member of the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany. The Catholic Church in Germany included Willi in their list of martyrs of the 20th century. In 2017, his cause for beatification was opened.

Willi was born in 1918 in Kuchenheim near Euskirchen. In 1922, his family moved to Saarbrücken, where his father was a wine wholesaler and managed the Johannishof, the second largest banquet hall in the city. At the age of eleven, he joined the Bund Neudeutschland, a Catholic youth movement for young men in schools of higher learning, which was banned after Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933. In 1934, he joined the Grauer Orden ("Grey Order"), another Catholic movement which became known for its anti-Nazi stand.  

Although compulsory at the time, he refused to associate with the Hitler Youth, even when he was threatened with becoming ineligible to go to University unless he joined.  While other future members of the White Rose (a nonviolent intellectual  resistance group led by five students and one professor at the University of Munich)  initially embraced the Hitler Youth, Willi never did. In 1935, at the age of 17, he and a few friends marched in an annual May Day parade. The parade was dominated by swastikas, brown-shirted Hitler Youth troops marching in formation, and "Sieg Heils." However, Willi and his friends marched under their tattered school flag, making great effort to stand out from their peers. They did not don any swastikas, or participate in any of the "Sieg Heil" salutes.   ( (Photo - Willie & his sisters, Anneliese & Marianne)

In 1937, Willi began his medical studies at the University of Bonn. In 1938, he was arrested along with other members of the Grauer Orden and charged by a court in Mannheim with illegal youth league activities. The charges were later dismissed as part of a general amnesty declared to celebrate the Anschluss. The detention had lasted three weeks. His time in jail did not weaken his decision to participate in anti-Nazi activities or organizations.

After his release, Willi was allowed to return to the University of Bonn to continue his medical studies. Willi had chosen the University of Bonn because his aunt and uncle lived in Bonn and offered to let him live with them, as well as the fact that many of his friends (including his then girlfriend Marianne Thoeren) went to that University. While there, he was required to report for military duty in August 1939. The next month, September 1939, the war officially began. The University of Bonn was then closed for the duration of the war.  After it closed, he transferred to Munich University, having completed four semesters at the University of Bonn.

While his parents never placed much emphasis on literature and written works (the only books the family owned were religious books), Willi  was a voracious reader. Serious and intelligently minded, he enjoyed reading Christian works, with one of his favorite Christian authors being  (Servant of God) Romano Guardini (see Blogs Aug. 2016 & Oct. 2017 update), one of the leading figures of the liturgical revival of the Catholic Church in Germany. He conducted an in-depth study of Christian authors in his teenage years, with a special focus on works by Romano Guardini. He also enjoyed reading poetry, foreign works, and works banned by the Nazis. Throughout his life, books were a lifeline for him. When he was serving on the Eastern Front, he would write to his friends to see if they could send him more books. In the last year of his life alone he read forty books

When in Bonn he met Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell  who were introduced to him by Christoph Probst, who took part in fencing with Willi. When Hans met Willi, he remarked, "he is one of us."

In June 1942, the activities of the White Rose first started. Having learned about mass murder in Poland and the Soviet Union, Hans and Alexander felt compelled to take action. They began writing leaflets, quoting extensively from the Bible, Aristotle, Goethe, and Schiller.  These leaflets were left in telephone books in public phone booths, mailed to professors and students, and taken by courier to other universities for distribution. Willi  was not part of the group at first. But was officially brought in July 1942.

 (Photo: Left to right: Hubert Furtwangler, Hans Scholl, Willie Graf and Alexander Schmorell on the Eastern Front, 1942)

 A few weeks later, the three men were deployed to the Russian Front. On the train ride to Russia, the train passed through Poland. While there, they saw the Evacutation of the Warsaw Ghetto.  In Russia, they would sneak away at night and go to the homes of Russian natives. They were allowed to return to Munich in November 1942. Returning to Bonn, he threw himself into the White Rose activities with vigor. A “favorite” activity  was graffiti on public buildings with slogans such as "down with Hitler" and "Hitler the Mass murderer!"

These graffiti campaigns put the Gestapo on high alert.  On 18 February 1943, several went to the  University to leave flyers out for the students to read. They were seen by Jakob Schmid, a custodian at the university who was also a Gestapo informer. At around midnight on 18 February, Gestapo agents arrested Willi when he returned to his apartment after meeting with his cousins. When he was captured, he asked to be allowed to go to his bedroom and change into his Wehrmacht uniform. The agents agreed to his request. While changing, he was able to hide his diary under his many books. The diary was later found by his sister Anneliese, who was also arrested by the Gestapo at the same time. She was released a few months later.

At his trial, Willi was sentenced to death for high treason.  He was beheaded on 12 October 1943 at Stadelheim Prison in Munich, after six months of solitary confinement. During this period the Gestapo used psychological torture to try to extract information from Willi about other White Rose members and other anti-Nazi movements.He  never gave up any names, taking on blame for the White Rose activities in order to protect others who had not yet been arrested.

 In his last letter to his family, he wrote:

On this day I'm leaving this life and entering eternity. What hurts me most of all is that I am causing such pain to those of you who go on living. But strength and comfort you'll find with God and that is what I am praying for till the last moment. I know that it will be harder for you than for me. I ask you, Father and Mother, from the bottom of my heart, to forgive me for the anguish and the disappointment I've brought you. I have often regretted what I've done to you, especially here in prison. Forgive me and always pray for me! Hold on to the good memories.... I could never say to you while alive how much I loved you, but now in the last hours I want to tell you, unfortunately only on this dry paper, that I love all of you deeply and that I have respected you. For everything that you gave me and everything you made possible for me with your care and love. Hold each other and stand together with love and trust.... God's blessing on us, in Him we are and we live.... I am, with love always, your Willi.

      The French street artist Christian Guémy did the portrait of Willi Graf as graffiti 

He wrote in his journal: “To be a Christian, is perhaps the hardest thing to ever become in life.” He was devoutly Catholic and it was said he would attend mass every Sunday even as a college student.  He was interested in the liturgy and composed some alternate liturgies that could be used at Mass.  

AMERICAN MARTYR IN KOREA

 

 As today we face a world with such hatred and loss of life, we find another American who is being considered for  canonization, who knew in his lifetime persecution.

SERVANT of GOD PATRICK BRENNAN was born in 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, to Irish parents.

He was educated in St Rita's High School and Quigley's Prep Seminary before studying for the priesthood in Mundelein seminary and ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1928, and served as a curate in Epiphany Church, St. Mary of the Lake, and St Anthonys, Joliet.

He joined the Missionary Society of St. Columban (Columban Fathers) in 1936 and  was assigned to Kwangju, Korea in 1937. In the early spring of 1939 the Maynooth Mission was entrusted by the Holy See with the care of a second mission field in the Province of Kogendo in Korea. Three Columban priests, Father Tom Quinlan, Father Pat Brennan and Father James Doyle were immediately appointed to the new territory.

Father Brennan was interned after Pearl Harbour, 8 Dec 1941, with the other priests. He was repatriated to the United States on the exchange ship “Gripsholm” in 1942 as an enemy alien.   In the United States he joined the US Army as a Chaplain, served in Normandy, Germany and the Ardennes.   Before going overseas, he won the Soldier’s medal for heroic service rendered to troops injured in a collision between a hospital train and a freight train.     

 In 1947 he was appointed missionary director of the Society in Asia.

In 1948, Monsignor Brennan was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Kwangju, Korea, where he was taken prisoner and killed by North Korean forces, September 24, 1950, in Taejon prison, along with two other Columban missionaries Fr. Thomas Cusack and Fr. John (Jack) O'Brien. His body was never recovered.

On September 24th 1050 Monsignor Patrick Brennan was killed at the Massacre of prisoners in Taejon. He was 49 years old.

In 2000, the names of the Columban Priests who were killed during the Korean War were inscribed in “The Book of Martyrs” presented to Pope (St.) John Paul II at a ceremony in the Colosseum in Rome commemorating Martyrs of the 20th Century.

CEASE WAR! FROM THE HOLY FATHER

 

                             8 nuns in Chapel-  Alfredo Ramos Martinez

November 5, Pope Francis begged for an end to war. “I continue to think about the serious situation in Palestine and in Israel where many, many people have lost their lives. In God’s name, I beg you to stop: Cease using weapons! I hope that avenues will be pursued so that an escalation of the conflict might be absolutely avoided, so that the wounded can be rescued and help might get to the population of Gaza where the humanitarian situation is extremely serious. May the hostages be freed immediately.

There are also many children among them – may they return to their families!  Yes, let’s think of the children, of all the children affected by this war, as well as in Ukraine and by other conflicts: this is how their future is being killed. Let us pray that there might be the strength to say, “enough.”

CHANGE OUR HEARTS

 

We are only a few weeks away from Advent- one asks how did the time fly? It seems our focus for the past two years has been on war and its effects on our world. People are losing hope, especially the young.  Where do we go? What is our future, they ask. Never, at least in my lifetime, has a generation faced the unknown. My answer is, we can only pray!  And no one hears our prayers more than our heavenly Mother.

Change the hearts of leaders to seek peaceful solutions. Bring harmony to our broken world. We ask all this through your help and intercession, Most Blessed Mother, as you lead and direct us each day into greater love for and obedience to your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

 “Without forgiveness, without the ability to move beyond the evil committed, we will never get out of this situation. But the timing and methods are not easy to determine. We are still at a time where emotions play a very important role in interpersonal and community relationships. The question of rebuilding healthy relationships will certainly arise: Trust between Israelis and Palestinians has been wounded in a very deep way.

 As Christians, our task is to boldly affirm the duties of justice and peace but at the same time, to be close to people without judging, without condemning, but by welcoming: welcoming the differences, the struggles, the different perspectives. At a time when everyone is building barriers, we must be the ones with open doors.” 

 Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, created a cardinal by Pope Francis on Sept. 3, 2023

INSTRUMENTS OF PEACE

 

PEACE PRAYER OF ST. FRANCIS of ASSISI

 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Picasso

            Top-  The Dove of Peace

            Bottom – Peace &  Unity

 

FORGIVE US WAR

 

Prayer for peace Pope Francis recited 

at his weekly general audience March 16, 2022

Composed by Archbishop Domenico Battaglia of Naples
Though written for the war in Ukraine, please pray also for peace throughout the world.

Forgive us for the war, Lord.

Lord Jesus, son of God, have mercy on us sinners.

Lord Jesus, born under bombs of Kyiv, have mercy on us.

Lord Jesus, dead in the arms of a mother in Kharkiv, have mercy on us.

Lord Jesus, in the 20-year-olds sent to the frontline, have mercy on us.

Lord Jesus, who continues to see hands armed with weapons under the shadow of the cross, forgive us, Lord.

Forgive us if, not content with the nails with which we pierced your hand, we continue to drink from the blood of the dead torn apart by weapons.

Forgive us if these hands that you had created to protect have been turned into instruments of death.

Forgive us, Lord, if we continue to kill our brother. Forgive us, Lord, if we continue to kill our brother, if we continue like Cain to take the stones from our field to kill Abel.

Forgive us if we go out of our way to justify cruelty, if, in our pain, we legitimize the cruelty of our actions. Forgive us the war, Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, we implore you to stop the hand of Cain, enlighten our conscience, let not our will be done, do not abandon us to our own doing. Stop us, Lord, stop us, and when you have stopped the hand of Cain, take care of him also. He is our brother.

O Lord, stop the violence. Stop us, Lord.

Amen.

Translated by Catholic News Service.