August 9 2024 - St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross - Persecuted for the sake of righteousness

 On Wednesday, we celebrated a group of martyrs who underwent the sword as a result of state-sponsored persecution of Christians in the year 258. Pope Sixtus and his companions were beheaded as a result of the Emperor Valerian decreeing that bishops, priests, and deacons were to be put to death.

Today’s saint was martyred, too, as a result of state-sponsored persecution nearly 1800 years later, in our own modern day. The year was 1942, Adolf Hitler was the Fuhrer of Germany and the Nazi party.

Though the Jews were the principal victims of the Nazi’s in World War II, millions of Catholics, including bishops, priests, and nuns were murdered in the concentration camps.  In 1942, the Nazi’s arrested Sister Teresa Benedicta out of the Carmelite Convent.  She and her sister Rosa, who had converted from Judaism to Catholicism along with her sister, were transported to Auschwitz in Poland by boxcar.  One week later, Sister was murdered in a gas chamber. 

The Nazis' long-term plan was to de-Christianize Germany after final victory in the war. Their ideology could not accept an autonomous establishment, whose legitimacy did not spring from the government, and they desired the subordination of the church to the state. The Nazi’s certainly could not tolerate the Church’s criticism and denouncement of the Nazi’s genocidal methods. 

We know what the world can do when left to its own devices. It seeks to silence and abolish the Word of God. It burns down churches, beheads popes, rips holy nuns out of their convents and sends them to the gas chamber. It gaslights, imprisons, tortures, and murders its critics. 

And the Lord places us in hostile enemy-controlled territory in order to witness to the truth of the Gospel, to cultivate sanctity by imitating the crucified Christ in our lives, so to become instruments in which our good God draws souls to himself. 

Catholics of course must be a bulwark against evil, confronting tyranny, working against the tide of religious persecution, defending the weak. We mustn’t lose hope when we see great evils arise in the world. Evils will ebb and flow until the Lord’s return.

Rather, we must trust that God has chosen us to live now, to stand courageously against evil, to cultivate substantial pulpable sanctity, and witness to the truth of the Gospel even as we are dragged from our homes. For Christ is victorious and promises eternal blessedness to those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness; for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

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For the Church, that she may remain steadfast in faith and courage in the face of persecution. 

For world leaders, that they may recognize the dignity of every human life and work to end all forms of hatred. 

For those suffering religious persecution today, or who feel hopeless in the face of evil in the world, that they may find strength in the witness of martyrs, and for the conversion of those who persecute others, that they may turn away from hatred and embrace the love of Christ. 

For our parish community, that we may cultivate sanctity in our daily lives and be effective witnesses to the Gospel in our words and actions. 

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering and for those who continue to experience the effects of this weeks tornados here in Northeast Ohio.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom. We pray.

Merciful Father, we bring these prayers before You on this memorial of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Through her intercession, strengthen our faith and grant us the courage to stand firm in Your truth, even in the face of persecution and adversity. We ask this through Christ our Lord.