[Catholic Caucus] Resolute Catholicism

In the previous article, I mentioned Blessed Sr. Maria Restitua Kafka in the context of Cardinal Reinhold Marx's latest demonstration of his un-Catholicity. As you know, His Eminence has railed against the Bavarian state for ordering all official buildings to display a Crucifix.

Moving onto more hopeful and positive things, the faithful witness of Blessed Sr. Kafka is a beautiful example upon which all Catholics could fruitfully meditate; thus deriving encouragement, strength and a desire to emulate such heroic virtue for God's greater glory.

Quite simply, because of her deep love for Christ, Sr. Kafka was resolute in her Catholicism.

The daughter of a shoemaking family from Austria-Hungary, Helena Kafkova moved with her family to Vienna as a small girl. After working as a housemaid and salesgirl in a tobacco store, she trained as a nurse. At the age of 20, Helena entered the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, taking the name in religion of Maria Restituta and eventually working as a nursing-sister at the Lainz Hospital.

Following the Austrian-German Anschluss of 1938, Sr. Kafka became an outspoken critic of the new regime. When a new wing was added to the hospital, Sr. Kafka kept up the tradition of placing a crucifix in every single room.

The Nazi authorities were not happy about this and demanded that Sr. Kafka remove all of the crucifixes. With resolute fidelity to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Sr. Kafka refused this immoral and unholy request. The Nazis attempted to have her removed from the hospital, but her Franciscan community protested that she could not be replaced at the hospital.

As the years progressed, Sr. Kafka continued to nurse at the hospital and also to speak out against the Nazi system. She was eventually denounced by a doctor, who was a staunch National Socialist.

As Lent began on Ash Wednesday, 1942, Sr. Kafka was arrested by Nazi officials, whilst she was coming out of the Lainz Hospital's operating theatre. She was accused with putting up and refusing to remove the crucifixes and with having dictated a poem which mocked Adolf Hitler.

That October the Nazi's so-called People's Court pronounced a death sentence on Sr. Kafka for conspiracy to commit high treason. The Nazi authorities offered leniency to Sr. Kafka on condition that she leave her convent. With her typical faithfulness, she refused this evil temptation.

Her case actually reached the desk of the infamous Martin Bormann, who refused clemency on the grounds that the execution of Sr. Kafka would act as an intimidation to anyone else who might try to resist the Nazi regime.

During the time of her imprisonment, Sr. Kafka penned a letter; the words of which can provide timeless inspiration to all Catholics everywhere. Perhaps they will have a particular, (and even an increasing), resonance for Catholics in the times through which we are all now living.

Sr. Kafka wrote: ''It does not matter how far we are separated from everything, no matter what is taken from us: the faith that we carry in our hearts is something no one can take from us. In this way we will build an altar in our own hearts.''

On 30th March, 1943, the 48-year old Sr, Maria Restituta Kafka was guillotined; not only a state-sanctioned murder, but also a sacrilege.

We can bet that Sr. Maria's resolution was nourished and strengthened by receptivity to divine grace, through a deep interior life of penance, prayer and loving self-sacrifice. This is a lesson to all of us.

During her beatification ceremony in 1998, St. John Paul II reflected: ''Many things can be taken from us Christians, but the Cross as the sign of salvation will not be taken from us. We will not let it be removed from public life! We will listen to the voice of our conscience, which says: 'We must obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29).''

May the recollection of these things help all who read these words to draw closer to the Cross of Christ and to receive from there all the love and grace which Our Lord Jesus Christ wants to lavish upon us from that kingly throne of Mercy.

Thank you. I needed that. You are so faithful to post.

2 posted on 05/07/2018 8:25:13 AM PDT by RitaOK (Viva Christo Rey! Public Ed/Academia are the farm team for more Marxists coming, infini)

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