Pope to Youths in Cologne (and us!), follow the martyrs’ heroic example

Asia News ^ | August 14, 2005

[NYer]

Castel Gandolfo (AsiaNews) – Martyrs are examples for our times, because of their patience in “not losing heart”, their perseverance in prayer and their lives led in close relationship with the sacrifice of Christ. Benedict XVI called on youths going to Cologne to attend World Youth Day, as well as all Christians, to follow in the footsteps of and imitate the example of martyrs, from those of ancient times, like Roman martyrs, to modern-day martyrs who died in Nazi concentration camps like Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe.

Speaking before the Angelus to a crowd of pilgrims at Castel Gandolfo, he asked all “not to despair even amid life’s hardest trials”. He said: “The Lord does not close his eyes to the needs of his children and in times when he seems insensitive to their pleas, it is only to be put them to the test to strengthen their faith.”

Below are the words spoken by Benedict XVI before the Angelus:

Dear brothers and sisters!

On this XX Sunday of ordinary time, the liturgy presents us with a singular example of faith: a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter “cruelly tormented by a demon”. As the evangelist Matthew tells us, the Lord resists her insistent pleas and does not seem to give in, even when his own disciples intercede for her. At the end, however, faced with the perseverance and humility of this stranger, Jesus consents: “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish” (cfr Mt 15: 21-28).

“Woman, great is your faith!” This humble woman is singled out by Jesus as an example of indomitable faith. Her insistence in calling for the intervention of Christ is an encouragement for us not to lose heart, not to despair even amid life’s greatest trials. The Lord does not close his eyes to the needs of his children and in times when he seems insensitive to their pleas, this is only to put them to the test and to strengthen their faith. This is the testimony of the saints, especially the witness of martyrs, who are linked in the closest way possible to the redeeming sacrifice of Christ. In recent days, we commemorated many: the popes Ponziano and Sixtus II, the priest Ippolito, the deacon Lawrence, killed with his companions in Rome at the dawn of Christianity. We also recalled a martyr of our times, St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Edith Stein, co-patron of Europe, who died in a concentration camp; and today the liturgy presents us with a martyr of charity, who sealed his witness to the love of Christ in a bunker of starvation in Auschwitz: St Maximilian Maria Kolbe, who sacrificed himself voluntary in the place of a father, a family man.

I invite every baptized Christian and especially youths taking part in World Youth Day to look to these shining examples of gospel heroism. I invoke on all their protection and especially that of St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who spent the last years of her life right in the Carmel of Cologne. On each one let Mary’s maternal love reign, the queen of martyrs who we contemplate tomorrow in her glorious assumption into heaven.

[NYer]

“The Lord does not close his eyes to the needs of his children and in times when he seems insensitive to their pleas, it is only to be put them to the test to strengthen their faith.”

Is there a martyr or group of martyrs to whom you feel especially devoted? Let's post their stories and learn from their example.

[NYer]

“The Lord does not close his eyes to the needs of his children and in times when he seems insensitive to their pleas, it is only to be put them to the test to strengthen their faith.”

Is there a martyr or group of martyrs to whom you feel especially devoted? Let's post their stories and learn from their example.

[AnAmericanMother]

The Carmelite martyrs of Compiègne.

(When I think of my own lack of courage in my very minor trials, it makes me ashamed.)

[StAthanasiustheGreat]

A wonderful martyr I read about recently was Saint Maria Goretti. She is a martyr for her purity, something I strive for but fall short.

The martyrs I look to the most are the English Martyrs of the Henrecian and Elizabethan period. I wrote my thesis on the Catholic Priests under Queen Elizabeth, so I feel particularly connected to men like St. Edmund Campion, Blessed Robert Southwell and others.

[paw prints]

Oh I just love the Carmelite martyrs! I have the book "To Quell the Terror" by William Bush and it's fantastic.

I also love Tsar Nicholas II and his family-they offered up so much suffering for their beloved Russia. They were martyred the exact same day as the Carmelites, July 17th.

[MarMema]

Is there a martyr or group of martyrs to whom you feel especially devoted? Let's post their stories and learn from their example.

Isn't that funny? I just posted to you on another thread about some wonderful martyrs - of your church.

[AnAmericanMother]

My daughter has a special devotion to St. Maria Goretti. (Good saint for a teenage girl!)

[Pyro7480]

The martyrs I look to the most are the English Martyrs of the Henrecian and Elizabethan period.

Forty Martyrs of England and Wales
(Taken from a postcard that I got last year at Tyburn Convent in London, just down the street from where many of these marytrs were executed, and where the relics of many of these saints are kept.)

It's hard to read the print on the bottom of the second image. The numbers correspond to the following:

1.)St. Edmund Gennings
2.)St. Robert Southwell
3.)St. John Kemble
4.)St. John Boste
5.)St. Margaret Ward
6.)St. Anne Line
7.)St. John Almond
8.)St. John Plessington
9.)St. David Lewis
10.)St. John Jones
11.)St. Richard Gwyn
12.)St. John Roberts
13.)St. Philip Evans
14.)St. John Lloyd
15.)St. Edmund Campion
16.)St. Alexander Briant
17.)St. Margaret Clitherow
18.)St. Augustine Webster
19.)St. Robert Lawrence
20.)St. John Houghton
21.)St. Richard Reynolds
22.)St. Luke Kirby
23.)St. Eustace White
24.)St. Polydore Plasden
25.)St. John Wall
26.)St. John Stone
27.)St. John Rigby
28.)St. Ambrose Barlow
29.)St. Henry Walpole
30.)St. John Southworth
31.)St. Philip Howard
32.)St. Alban Roe
33.)St. Edmund Arrowsmith
34.)St. Swithun Wells
35.)St. Thomas Garnet
36.)St. John Paine
37.)St. Ralph Sherwin
38.)St. Cuthbert Mayne
39.)St. Henry Morse
40.) St. Nicholas Owen

[Cincinnatus]

Is there a martyr or group of martyrs to whom you feel especially devoted? Let's post their stories and learn from their example.

St. Isaac Jogues is my favorite, and not just because I'm five miles from his shrine in Auriesville, NY. He came from France to minister to the Hurons in Canada. The party he was with were attacked by Mohawks. Jogues hid in the bushes while his indian friends were captured. He feared that they were too young in the faith to be on their own through this crisis, so he stood up and allowed himself to be captured as well. He was subjected to horrible torture, including having some of his fingers chewed to stumps (he later obtained a special dispensation from Rome so that he could hold the Eucharist with his remaining fingers). They were brought to the Mohawk Valley, hundreds of miles away and held prisoner.

His lay companion, Rene Goupil, was martyred for making the sign of the cross over an Indian child (the Calvinists in Fort Orange [Albany,NY]had taught the Mohawks that making the sign of the cross was a curse.)

Eventually the Mohawks brought him to Albany where the Calvinist minister arranged his escape. He hid in a house while the city fathers negotiated with the Mohawks and seriously considered turning him over when they were threatened with war. By and by he managed to board a boat for New York, and from there headed to England. He arrived there during the Cromwell revolution when all priests (especially Jesuits) faced an automatic death sentence. The protestant ship captain wanted no more of this and sailed across the channel and dumped him on the nearest shore of France. It was Christmas Eve. He wandered into the nearest village in time for confession and midnight Mass, his first Mass in several years.

Next day he went to the nearest Jesuit house some miles away and told them he was a Jesuit recently returned from New France.

"Is there any word of our brother Isaac Jogues?"

"I am Isaac Jogues."

His fame had preceded him from letters that had been smuggled out of the Mohawk territory. He became the toast of France, feted with great parties and appearances at the Royal Court. He feared his fame would make him succumb to the sin of pride and risk his immortal soul. He asked to be sent back to New France. He asked to be made ambassador to the Mohawk nation.

He returned to Ossernenon, the very village where he had been captive. A disgruntled relative of a Christian convert murdered him.

Time passed and the murderer was identified on a trip to Canada, tried and sentenced to death. Just before his execution he asked to be baptized and the wish was granted.

"What do you take as your Christian name?" asked the priest.

"I take the name . . .Isaac Jogues."

[markomalley]

St. Maximillian Kolbe and St. Stephen would qualify as the two I've felt closest to.

Ever since I first heard the story of St. Maximillian's life, I have been in awe of his self-sacrifice. It is a truly fascinating story, not only because of his martyrdom, but also for what he did during his life. Many of us know that he founded the Militia Immaculata, some know that he lived in Japan, spreading the gospel, but how many knew that the Franciscan monastery he founded was founded in the city of Nagasaki? How many knew that, by the grace of God it survived the war, including the atomic bombing of that city? St. Maximilian was a truly remarkable person.

St. Stephen is also very important to me as well. He was the first documented martyr in the Church. No, I'm not saying he was the first martyr...but he was the first one written about. St. Stephen was a deacon. His martyrdom served as a witness to the person who would become St. Paul of Tarsus.

In both cases, the attitude of total disregard of self, total lack of fear, and total, joyful acceptance of God's will should be a tremendous example to all of us. /homily

[Siobhan]

Bump to my list (which you so ably posted, dear Pyro).

[Siobhan]

Since it is in Germany, I think of ,,die weisse Rose'' -- The White Rose -- a group of young people and a professor who defied the Nazis in Bavaria. The group included Roman Catholics (one baptised Catholic just before his execution), Lutherans, and a very brave young Russian Orthodox man. Their execution by guillotine and the witness (martyr) of their testimony to Christ against the Nazis still shakes the ground under my feet and inspires me.

[MarMema]

Thank you for sharing this story.

[MarMema]

Sometimes in April.

[Romish_Papist]

This is a fantastic thread, keep the tales of the saints coming. Truly inspirational!

[Cavalcabo]

This is not a dramatic story of martyrdom, but the story of three Passionist priests who risked their lives and died bringing the Gospel to China. The Passionists' struggles in China over many years has largely been forgotten, but they started Catholic communities that remain today.

Walter Coveyou, Godfrey Holbein, Clement Seybold

Twenty-seven years later and in far off China three young Passionist missionaries from the American provinces were murdered or "martyred" by bandits. This is a contemporary account of their tragic deaths.

Father Walter Coveyou, Father Godfrey Holbein, and Father Clement Seybold were slain by bandits on April 24, 1929. The priests had finished their retreat on April 17 and were returning through the mountains to their assigned mission stations.

They spent a night at a lodging in a small village. The woman in charge was entertaining another guest. Early in the morning the three took off for an eight mile journey to a larger town where there would be military guards. They had gone less than one mile when they were surrounded by a gang of bandits numbering 16 or 17. One of them was the guest at the lodging. The bandits forced the three priests to follow a path up into the high mountains.

At a cove on the mountainside the bandits asked for their money. When Father Walter told them that he did not understand them he was, without further warning, shot in the head. Father Clement was also shot in the head. Father Godfrey began to give absolution once again when he was shot twice.

Their bodies were then thrown into a pit where they were found a few days later by the police and several Passionists who went in search of them. Saturday, May 4, 1929, the three missionaries were buried in the cemetery at the mission headquarters in Shenchow.

That is the story as told in The Sign in 1930. Sixty years later we ask who were these three Passionists? Why were they killed?

Father Walter Coveyou was born at Petoskey, Ohio, in 1894, and was ordained in 1920. He was from Holy Cross province (Chicago). Father Godfrey Holbein was born in Baltimore in 1899, and ordained in 1923. Father Clement Seybold was born at Dunkirk in 1896 and ordained in 1923. Both were members of the Eastern province (Union City).

Why were they murdered? Father Godfrey Holbein stated that he had volunteered to go to China: "because I love Christ. I want to make him known and loved by those poor pagans." Writing from China to a cloistered nun who had become his "spiritual sister" he said: "Please pray that the will of God be done, that I may receive the great desire of my life and heart - to die the death of an Apostle - Holy Martyrdom...Keep this, my desire, secret, please..."

At the time of their deaths they were immediately hailed as "martyrs" by Catholics in the United States. Father Francis Flaherty wrote an article in The Sign insisting that since they were "in China for Christ", they willingly gave their life to bring Christ to China. Their cause for beatification has not been introduced at Rome.

http://www.passionist.org/gpih/chapter_twenty_four.html

[NYer]

Thank you for sharing that story with us! and .....

Welcome to Free Republic!

I maintain a catholic 'ping' list which directs its members to stories of interest to catholics. Please freepmail me if you would like to be added to the list.

[Salvation]

BTTT!