MORE CONNECTIONS- IN LENT

 

In doing research in our previous blog about Bl. Nikolaus Gross, I discovered SERVANT OF GOD EUGEN BOLZ.  Interestingly enough he was the uncle of one of our dear friends in the Vatican, Cardinal Augustin Mayer, OSB (Abbey at Metten) and his sister, who once stayed at our Abbey in CT.

Born in Rottenburg am Neckar in1881 of a Catholic family, Eugen was his parents' twelfth child.  His father Joseph Bolz was a salesman, his mother was Maria Theresia Bolz (née Huber). He joined the Windhorstbund, the youth organization of the Center Party, at an early age.

He studied law in Tubingon and in 1919  became Württemberg's minister of justice, and a few years later was appointed minister of the interior. He was married to Maria Hoeness, with whom he had a daughter.

 In 1928, the center-right coalition elected him president of Württemberg. Eugen supported the policies of Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning*, but he underestimated the NSDAP's political goals in late 1932 and only clearly spoke out against Hitler in early 1933.

 On March 11, 1933 the National Socialists dissolved his government. In June 1933 Eugen himself was taken into "Schutzhaft" ("protective custody") for several weeks. In spite of this, he maintained contact with his political friends from the disbanded Center Party, the outlawed Social Democratic Party, and the earlier liberal German State Party.

Later he also volunteered to work with Carl Goerdeler and was to be given the office of a minister following the coup attempt of July 20, 1944. Eugen Bolz was arrested on August 12, 1944. He was sentenced to death by the People's Court on December 21, 1944, (Photo to right) and murdered in Berlin-Plötzensee on January 23, 1945.

 One wonders if he knew Bl. Nikalaus Gross and how many other "holy" people in prison?

*(Another connection- When the mother one of our nuns at Regina Laudis died I went with her to her family home in Vermont. Her father annd I got along very well and before I left to return to the Abbey, he told me I could have anything in the house I wanted.  I chose a very small metal placque on the wall, not knowing the value to the family.  It was given to them by ex-Chancellor Bruning  when he stayed with them after fleeing Nazi Germany. I hade the medal for years turning it over to a younger nun when I came west to OLR.)

(Photo of monument in Stuttgart)

DOMINICAN BLESSED-WWII

 

BLESSED MARIA JULIA  (nee Stanislawa) RODZINSKA, OP was born on 16 March 1899 in Nawojowa, Poland. She was one of five children of  Michał and Marianna (Sekuła).  Michal was an organist for the parish church, a talented composer and man-of-all-trades who took on various jobs to make ends meet. His wife Marianna helped where she could, but a long-term illness took her life when Stanislawa was only 8 years old. Times must have been tough for the whole family(two boys and two girl), as Michal battled rheumatism in his fight to provide for his children. Two years later, Michal died, leaving Stanislawa and her 3 siblings orphans.

At the age of ten the future blessed and her four year old sister became wards of the Dominican Sisters in Nawojowa.  The two boys were taken in by relatives.

 After finishing school there, she started studies in the Teachers' Seminar in Nowy Sącz, but didn't complete them because she began her religious formation in Wielowieś, entering the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dominika in Tarnobrzeg-Wielowieś. After her vows in 1924 she completed her interrupted education.

 As a qualified teacher, she carried out her ministry in Mielżyn, Rawa Ruska and Vilnius (now Lithuania) for 22 years.

 From 1934, she was the superior of the house in Vilnius, also running an orphanage. As a teacher, she knew how to motivate her class and strengthen her weaker students.  To her, it was particularly important to impart to them a love for the Rosary and the Eucharist. 

After the outbreak of World War II, she secretly taught Polish language, history and religion, and conducted humanitarian activities.

She also assisted the archbishop in saving Jews from capture by the Gestapo and provided for retired priests who otherwise would have been left impoverished.

 On 12 July 1943, Sister Julia was jailed by the Gestapo in Łukiszki prison in Vilnius. In a year, she was sent to the German concentration camp Stutthof, registered as number 40992. There she was subjected to torture, isolation and humiliation.

 Sr. Julia was assigned to the Jewish part of the Stutthof, where conditions were particularly cruel.  Although such activities were forbidden, she led prayer groups and even arranged for a priest prisoner to come on a “work assignment” to hear Confessions.

 Due to the inhumane conditions of concentration camps, prisoners often lost their sense of morality for the sake of their own survival.  However, Sr. Julia jeopardized her own life to show mercy to her fellow prisoners in the dark and tormenting cruelty of Stutthof. 

 When the typhus epidemic came to Stuthoff in November of 1944, Sr. Julia would go to the bedside of the sick and give what comfort and treatment she could.  Fellow prisoners testify that she was a source of strength for them by her example of piety and charity. 

 Sister Julia died of exhaustion and disease on 20 February 1945 in Stutthof, two months before the concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. Her naked body was discarded on a pile of corpses, but someone honored her by placing a little cloth over her body. The words of those who survived Bl. Julia perhaps tell it best: “Not only Catholic compatriots mourned her death, but also Russians, Latvians, and others.” The Jewish women did not hesitate to call Sr. Julia a martyr and a saint. “She gave her life for others, died sacrificing herself; she was the Angel of goodness.”

 In 1999, she was proclaimed blessed by Pope St. John Paul II in the group of 108 Blessed Martyrs. Her feast is February 20.

 

WOMEN OF THE CHURCH

 

Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMAN’S DAY and yesterday the Holy Father met with a group in the international conference of “WOMEN IN THE CHURCH: BUILDERS OF HUMANITY”. Here are some of his words, with emphasis on modern saints, as an example to all women of the Church, striving for holiness.

 

“Your Conference highlights in particular the witness of holiness of ten women. I would like to mention them by name: Josephine Bakhita, Magdeleine de Jesus, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mary MacKillop, Laura Montoya, Kateri Tekakwitha, Teresa of Calcutta, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi and Daphrose Mukasanga.

 All these women, at different times and in different cultures, each in her own distinct way, gave proof through initiatives of charity, education and prayer, of how the “feminine genius” can uniquely reflect God’s holiness in the midst of our world. Indeed, precisely at times in history when women were largely excluded from social and ecclesial life, the “Holy Spirit raised up saints whose attractiveness produced new spiritual vigor and important reforms in the Church.

 Here too, "I think of all those unknown or forgotten women who, each in her own way, sustained and transformed families and communities by the power of their witness” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 12). The Church needs to keep this in mind, because the Church is herself a woman: a daughter, a bride and a mother. And who better than women can reveal her face? Let us help one another, putting aside any aggressive and divisive attitudes, and exercising careful discernment, to discover, in docility to the voice of the Spirit and in faithful communion, fitting ways for the grandeur and the place of women to be increasingly valued in the People of God."

A FAMILY MAN- MARTYR

 

Another lay martyr of WWII was BL. NIKOLAUS GROSS, who was born near Essen, Germany. He first worked in crafts requiring skilled labor before becoming a coal miner like his father while joining a range of trade union and political movements. But he finally settled on becoming a journalist.

His work with the unions took him throughout Germany and he eventually settled in the Ruhr Valley. There, he married his wife, Elizabeth, and the couple had seven children. He was a devoted father who tried to raise his children to be good Catholics and faithful citizens.

Bl. Nikolaus became aware of the political movements within Germany, including the rise of Adolf Hitler. As the Nazis came to power, he served as the editor of a German workers’ newspaper and was able to give voice to his Catholic faith as he tried to address the complicated political realities of his day.

 In 1930 he wrote, “As Catholic workers, we reject Nazism not only for political and economic reasons, but decisively also, resolutely and clearly, on account of our religious and cultural attitude.”

 Because of his strong stance, he was marked as an “enemy of the state” and became a target of the Nazis.

In 1940 he endured interrogations and house searches since he was being monitored at the time. On 12 August 1944 he was arrested sometime towards noon in connection with the failed plot to kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair in East Prussia. He was first taken to Ravensbrück and then to Berlin at the Tegel prison (from September 1944) where his wife visited him twice and reported the torture done to a hand and both his arms.

His letters from prison testify to his spirit of prayer and dedication to his family.

He was executed on January 23, 1945. The priest who was with him at the time of his death testified, “Gross bowed his head silently during the blessing. His face already seemed illuminated by the glory into which he was getting ready to enter.” His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered at a sewage plant. He died soon after the Servant of God Eugen Bolz who was imprisoned in the same prison.

 He was beatified in 2001 by Pope St. John Paul II. His feast is January 15.

“If we do not risk our life today, how then do we want to justify ourselves one day before God and our people.”   Blessed Nikolaus Gross

FILLING IN THE GAP- ANOTHER HOLY MARTYR

 

BL. NATALIA TULASIEWICZ was another lay woman beatified as part of the 108 Martyrs of WWII.

 She was born in Rzeszów, Poland in 1906. She moved with her family to Poznań in 1921. She studied Polish philology at the University of Pozńan and music at the Conservatory. She was a very devout Catholic, and wrote that she wished to strengthen her faith by good deeds and studying. Reflecting on the fact that men and women are made in the image of God, she wrote: “It is precisely our reason that makes us creatures similar to God.”

Unfortunately, her musical training was interrupted because she contracted tuberculosis, necessatating an operation on her throat. She finished university in 1931 and had meanwhile begun her teaching career

.Despite her great love of God, Blessed Natalia did not feel at all called to become a religious sister. It was very important to her that she remain and work for God in the world as a laywoman. And at first she thought she would do this as a married woman. In 1927, when she was 21, she became engaged and remained engaged for seven years. Unfortunately, her fiancé was an atheist and a communist, and so Blessed Natalia ended their relationship in 1934. 

 During the occupation of Poland, her family was among the many Polish families who were dispossessed by the Germans after annexation of Poznań; thrown out of their homes with only a few hours' notice

But rather than being brokenhearted, she felt that love had tied her even more to earthly life in the world. The love of God, she wrote, had made her heart so powerful that nothing could break it.

 “It seems to me that I am on the path to a new era in my life, a path that is difficult but worthwhile. Now I love life more than ever before. I have always loved it in God, today I desire in the fullest sense to live in God!”

 Natalia thus gave herself totally to God but in such a way that she could find and achieve holiness in the everyday, modern world. She wrote, “I have the courage to become a saint. Only holiness is the fullest form of love, and so I don’t just want but must become a saint, a modern saint, a theocentric humanist.” 

She wrote as well as taught: poetry, novels and newspaper articles. She received much attention for her travels with the famous ship “Batory” in 1937. In 1938, she went to Rome for the canonization of St.. Andrziej Bobola and travelled all over Italy.

She was involved in the underground education in Kraków and was a member of the Polish Underground State. In 1943, she volunteered to leave for Germany together with other women who were forced to perform heavy work, to give them spiritual comfort.

 She worked in a factory and secretly taught religion and German to her fellow workers. She organized prayers and singing. As she wrote to her sister: “Only here do I fully realize how valuable is my life of solitude and my secular apostolate. And I realize how important it is to go outside and fill in the gap between a saint in a monastery and a layperson outside. I would simply say: let us leave with the holiness in our souls to streets! "

 When the Germans found out about her secret mission, she was arrested, tortured, and condemned to death in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. On Good Friday 1945, she climbed a stool in the barracks and spoke to the prisoners on the passion and resurrection of Jesus. Two days later, on Easter Sunday, 31 March, she was murdered in a gas chamber. The concentration camp was liberated two days later.

Natalia is one of the only two lay women among the 108 Martyrs of World War II, beatified on 13 June 1999 by Pope (St.) John Paul II.     On 30 March 2022, Blessed Natalia was announced patron saint of Polish teachers. 

(Some information from Dorothy Cummings McLean, "Catholic Women of the 20th Century" (paper presented at the Dzielne Niewiasty ["Brave Women"]  Majówka dla Kobiet [May Retreat for Women] Krakow, Poland 2-4 May, 2014).

TWO MARTYRS OF BELARUS

Why am I emphasizing martyrs of WWII during this Lent?  Because the heroic witnesses of these saints and blesseds can be an inspiration for us all, especially in the troubling times of our world today.  May we in our small Lenten practices strive to imitate the witness of these martyrs, and die to ourselves.

Our next blesseds of WWII martyred by the Nazi, were Marians of the Immaculate Conception in Belarus. They are ANTHONY LESZCZEWICZ and GEORGE KASZYRA.

 In Rosica, in Belarus, where the Marians had a mission parish, the Bolsheviks occupied the town in 1939, with the Germans  taking occupation in 1941. The Nazi regime was coming over the Latvian border, and the residents of little town knew that danger was imminent.

 One of the religious sisters on mission in the town survived the persecution and gives an account of the two blessed priests and their heroic witness at that time.

“On Tuesday, February 16, bells began to ring. The Germans rounded up the first groups of people and held them in the church in Rosica: Mothers with babies, children, youngsters, and old people. They also herded us Sisters inside. In the church there was shouting, crying, and despair. At the request of Father Leszczewicz, a German read out our names and ordered the Sisters to leave the church and go to the rectory. The priests stayed in the church during all of Tuesday and all night. They celebrated Holy Masses, listened to confessions, and administered other sacraments.

 On Wednesday, February 17, Father Kaszyra came to the rectory, heard our confessions, and gave us Holy Communion. During the day, the priests persevered in their priestly ministry in the church. We kept bringing bread, milk, and whatever we had to the church, especially for the children.

 In the afternoon of February 17, about 4 p.m., Father Leszczewicz appeared. He said farewell to us. He was full of joy. He said with a smile: "Bear up and pray. I am going to show them the warehouse." And he never came back.

 When we tried to return to the church, the officer stopped us and didn't let us in. He said that Father Kaszyra would come right back. Late in the evening, Father Kaszyra actually returned and said to us: "Father Leszczewicz is already dead and tomorrow I will be dead, too."

At night, from Wednesday to Thursday, February 17-18, the Sisters were continually praying in a bedroom. In the dining room, Father Kaszyra kept vigil all night long. He was praying, walking around, kneeling, and prostrating himself.

 On Thursday, February 18, he brought the Blessed Sacrament from the church and distributed it among us. At 10 a.m., Father George Kaszyra was taken away. In front of the church, he was ordered to mount the sledge. He was taken away among many other sledges. He bade farewell to us, turned toward Druja, and then said: "Pray and ask forgiveness from God for my sins, because I will face God's judgment in a few minutes."

Together with Sister Rozalia Marcilonek, we went back to the rectory and we looked through the window at the entire convoy. Father George Kaszyra was in the first sledge. They went uphill and turned right. A moment later, the entire hut erupted in flames. Rosica and the neighboring villages were being burned. The whole sky was on fire; and when the fires burned out, partially burned bodies, piled together, could be seen.”

The two Marian Martyrs were among more than 1,500 laypeople and dozens of religious in Belarus, killed by the Nazis in February of 1943. The Germans were rounding up all who resisted their occupation of the land formerly held by the Soviet Union. Many others were sent to Nazi work camps in Poland.

Marian.org
TheDivineMercy.org

GRANDMOTHER MARTYR

 

Our next martyr for Lent, is a laywoman, mother and widow.

MARIANNA BIERNACKA (nee Czokała) was born in 1888 in Lipsk, Poland. She is also one of the beatified 108 Martyrs of World War II.

Marianna married a farmer named Louis and  they had six children, only two of them surviving infancy. In 1943, during the Second World War, her son Stanisław and his pregnant wife Anna were arrested by German soldiers. In retaliation for the death of other German soldiers that had been killed in a nearby village, the husband and wife were singled out to be shot, though they were innocent of any wrong-doing.

Marianna offered to take the place of her pregnant daughter in-law (the couple already had a two-year-old daughter named Genia), and the soldiers agreed. The Nazis took Marianna and her son to the prison in Grodno.  

While in the prison, she only requested a pillow and a rosary.   After two weeks in prison in which she spent much of her time praying, Marianna was shot and killed on 13 July 1943 in Naumowicze (Belarus) along with her son.   Their bodies were thrown into a common grave. Around that time, Anna gave birth to a son, naming him Stanislaw after his father. Anna lived to age 98 and descendents still live in the area. 

 Bishop Jerzy Mazur, Bishop of Elk, said on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the death of Bl Marianna Biernacka that “Staring at her ordinary life, we see that it was imbued with faith, love, prayer, work and suffering.  Each day began with prayer and common singing Hours. Everyday life was filled with a difficult job in summer in a field and in winter, spun flax and hemp and weaving on a loom.   Recitation of the Rosary prayer and devotional singing songs allowed the dignity to endure the pain of bereavement, hard work and daily poverty.”