SAINT OF THE MONTH NEWSLETTER • OCTOBER, 2013 • WWW.CARMELITEMISSIONS.ORG CARMELITE MISSIONS

Father Joseph P. O’Brien, O. Carm. Director of Carmelite Missions Blessings from St. Thérèse...

Dear Friend, especially in Peru, , and , but also in many other mission lands. These missionaries must give signs to their people On the first day of October, and our friends every- that God cares about them before they can, in any meaningful way, where celebrate the Feast of the greatest Saint of modern times, proclaim the Good News of His loving kindness. They must feed the “St. Thérèse of Lisieux.” The Little Flower, as she is lovingly known, hungry, care for the sick, provide housing and education. But their is also Patroness of the Missions. basic responsibility is always the same—TO SPREAD THE GOSPEL.

I will remember you in a Novena of Masses beginning that day. Your generosity to Carmelite Missions makes you a missionary This is one way I have to thank you for all that you do to help us too. It is indeed a very personal and very direct response to the touch the needs of those we are called to serve. challenge Jesus still gives to all of us. May the Good News be your constant joy and peace! It seems to me that the Feast of The Little Flower is an ideal time to reflect again that the final challenge Jesus left the Church With my love, was to spread the Good News of His Father’s loving kindness. You will recall how at the very end, when the saving work of His death and resurrection was accomplished, He sent the disciples “to every Fr. Joseph P. O’Brien, O. Carm. nation.” Director of Carmelite Missions

Carmelite missionaries respond to the final challenge of the Lord Jesus. They do it among some of today’s poorest people… “Mary is more Mother than Queen.” –St. Thérèse Saint of the Month

 Blessed Titus Brandsma, O. Carm.  A Modern

help Jewish victims escape to Carmelite missions in Brazil at the time of his arrest. When the Germans occupied The in 1940, Brandsma was chosen by the Catholic Bishops to be spokesman in the defense of a free Catholic press. He did his work enthusiastically and soon became a marked man.

Titus, who was labeled “the dangerous little ” by the Nazis, was finally arrested on January 19, 1942. In a statement to his captors, written in his prison cell, the courageous Carmelite testified: “The Nazi movement is regarded by the not only as an insult to God in relation to his creatures, but only as an insult to the glorious tradition of the Dutch nation. If it is necessary, we, the Dutch people, will give our lives for our faith.”

His interrogators were incensed. “Brandsma feels he must protect Christianity against National Socialism,” they reported. He is an obstacle to all our plans and “we will not let him free.”

Born in 1881 in Frisia, the most northern province of The Netherlands, Titus grew up in Titus was deeply respected as a man of a farming family. In 1898, he entered the Carmelite Order, attracted by its life of prayer and prayer. Alone in his cell, he organized his contemplation and its outstanding devotion to Our Lady. In 1905 he was ordained a priest. day to the last moment. He wrote poetry, worked on a biography of St. Teresa, the Most of his life was dedicated to teaching and scholarship. He gained renown through- great Carmelite mystic, composed a series out Holland as a spiritual master, one of the founders of the Catholic University, and an of meditations on the Way of the Cross, accomplished journalist. Above all else, Titus was a prophet who responded wholeheartedly wrote two booklets, prayed his breviary, and fearlessly to the needs and issues of his time. and knelt in silent prayer two hours. He had a scheduled time for walks and even a As early as 1935, he was writing and speaking out against the Nazi menace. One of the special time to smoke his pipe, until they first to denounce the persecution of the Jews, he was reported to be involved in plans to took it away from him. At this time, he wrote to the Carmelites: “I feel at home. I pray, I write. The days are really too short. I am very calm. I feel happy and satisfied.” So calm that he managed to complete six of his twelve proposed chapters for his biography of St. Teresa.

On March 12, the calm was cruelly shattered. Titus was transferred to a notorious penal depot in Amersfoort. Here prisoners were brutalized, starved, maimed, and often murdered. In spite of terrible suffering, Titus is remembered as the one who reached out to others. They remembered him for his courage, generosity of spirit and great faith. “His care and concern for the Jews,” one survivor recalled, “were particularly touching.”

Frequently, Titus would gather groups of prisoners together and lead them through meditations on Christ’s passion. He heard confession and even managed to minister to the sick and dying in the camp hospital. Many recalled the Carmelite urging them to have for- giveness for the brutal captors. “Pray for them, too,” he would say. “But that is so hard,” they would object. Titus would smile and counsel: “Well, you don’t have to pray for them all day long!”

In late April, the Gestapo interrogated Brandsma one last time. He stood by his con- victions again, refusing to alter any of his positions. “You will be transferred to Dachau,” Titus Brandsma they told him. “You will stay there until the end of the war.” Titus wrote to his family: “In Dachau, I will meet friends, and the Lord God is everywhere,” Then he added, well aware Before a Picture of Jesus of what lay in store for him, “Dachau doesn’t have a very good name. It is not a place you in My Cell really long for.” A new awareness of Thy love In a last letter to his family, Titus wrote, “With me everything is fine. You have to get encompasses my heart: used to new situations. With God’s help, this is working out all right. Don’t worry too Sweet Jesus, I in Thee and Thou much about me.” His spirit was never vanquished, but his frail body, now bruised, bro- In me shall never part. ken and filled with infection, could resist no more. When he could no longer walk, he was carried to the hospital. No grief shall fall my way but I Shall see thy grief-filled eyes; At Dachau the hospital was a hell within a hell. Here sadistic doctors used the pris- The lonely way that Thou once walked oner for cruel medical experimentation. Titus Brandsma, like the other patients was used Has made me sorrow-wise. as human guinea pig and suffered frightfully. The few survivors were maimed for life. The All trouble is a white-lit joy, gentle Carmelite who devoted his life to bringing hope to others, even in Dachau, became That lights my darkest day’ another subject for insane medical experimentation. On July 26, 1942, the doctor in Thy love has turned to brightest light charge of his case ordered that he be injected with a deadly drug. Ten minutes later, Titus This night-like way. Brandsma died. If I have Thee alone, One of his last conscious acts was to give his rosary, the handiwork of a fellow pris- The hours will bless oner, to the nurse who would give him his final injection. This woman would never forget With still, cold hands of love her encounter with Titus Brandsma. She returned to the practice of her faith and became My utter loneliness. one of the witnesses to his martyrdom, testifying to his great holiness, gentleness, courage and faith. Stay with me, Jesus, only stay; I shall not fear Three days after his death, the body of Titus Brandsma was cremated, his ashes If, reaching out my hand, buried in “The Grave of Unknown Thousands.” He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on I feel thee near. November 2, 1984. NON-PROFIT CARMELITE MISSIONS ORGANIZATION 8501 Bailey Road • Darien, IL 60561-8418 U.S. POSTAGE www.carmelitemissions.org PAID Rescigno’s Marketing Connections

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 Blessed Titus Brandsma, O. Carm. 

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