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http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0805241825/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link
Elie Wiesel reflects on the Holocaust with these valid observations:
-Recurrent pogroms and hateful myths were stirred up about the Jews. These had a long thread back to the Middle Ages and before . In an educated twentieth century society among the world's most cultured peoples, most learned peoples, the Germans and the French, the recurrent spectre of the Blood Libel myth ,the myth that Jewry had soaked their matzos with the blood of Christian children, were prolonged into the twentieth century and were alive and well even beyond the Nazi era."In Little Jewish villages,a wise man was a prince".
Another Haunting book, The Trial of God, has its setting in a Ukranian village. Only two Jews survive brutal Cossak raids,Berish and his daughter Hannah .Three itinerant actors arrive to perform a Purim play and Berish insists they stage a mock trial of God indicting Him.
Indicting Him for His silence in the face of evil.The idea for this play came from an event Elie Wiesel witnessed at Auschwitz. Three pious Rabbis decided one evening to indict God for allowing His people to be massacred. Wiesel felt like crying but there nobody cried.Searching for faith in a world where God was silent were two joining Christian theologians Robert Brown and Matthew Fox.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Resplendent in Victory
Pere Jacques: Resplendent in Victory
Article from: The Catholic Historical Review Article date: April 1, 2000 Author: Sciurba, Salvatore | Copyright information
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3885/is_199907?pnum=2&opg=n8871595&tag=artBody;col1
Pyre Jacques: Resplendent in Victory. By Francis J. Murphy. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies. 1998. Pp. xiii, 200. $10.95 paperback.)
Francis J Murphy wrote a second book on Fr Jacques which is on Amazon Listen to the Silence
I have taken a quote from Francis J Murray. Note the above link.
I first saw Pere Jacques in May 1944 through the bars of block 27, in the infirmary of Gusen, where devoured by fever and stretched out on a pallet, with an arm slashed by a scalpel-I longed for a comforting smile from heaven. He brought it to me.
With our friends Jean Cayrol, Louis Boussel, and Gaston Passagey, he came each day for three months, morning and evening, with a word of encouragement. His bits and pieces of daily news were enlivened by an ardent optimism and strong faith in an early Allied victory. In these furtive predawn visits, I drew deeply from this miraculous source the stamina sorely needed for my own victory over an apparently definitive decline.
These long weeks of physical pain finally ended. Another existence, fraught with danger, was beginning-that of a factory worker. I was no longer a dying man but a resurrected one, and each day I witnessed Pere Jacques fully devoted to his work. And what a work! Little by little, his prestige asserted itself in the camp. He became a most respected personality, whose role, both moral and material, would be essential to the French community....
Many French, and foreigners too, met with him daily for words of encouragement and peace. Shunning prudence, he exposed himself to denunciation. However, he continued his ministry as the only priest in a camp of 20,000 men. He risked death at every second, since the S.S. would tolerate no religion other than Hitler-worship. His whole appearance was that of a man of action. Nre Jacques always
struck me as a fighter; he had the soul of a fighter. For him, nothing was too great an effort. He gave of himself just as naturally as others spared themselves. In the same way he lived a life of charity, with ardor and concern; he defended his points of view heatedly, vivaciously, and even sharply.... My last view of Gusen and of its drill yard, where so many had perished, is for me inseparable from the memory of the man, the priest, who in this multitude once more overcame every adversity and who, in the end, brought us the victory-the triumph of the human spirit over a system born of materialism and depravity. The great victor was the one who had survived these trials, just as the salamander survives fire. April 28, 1945! In our eyes, Pere Jacques was resplendent in victory.
... Nre Jacques, you who for months each morning and evening brought me words of comfort, affection, and love; you who sustained in me each day the feeble flame of life by your presence and your smile; you who prayed for a bad Christian and for the others; you who radiated in this death camp so much light, so much life; you who taught men, all men, true nobility of soul, enthusiasm of heart, and strength of mind; allow me, tonight, to give you this message from the living, the repatriated from Compiegne, Gusen, and Mauthausen, the beneficiaries of a miracle, Nre Jacques, we are always with you.
Article from: The Catholic Historical Review Article date: April 1, 2000 Author: Sciurba, Salvatore | Copyright information
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3885/is_199907?pnum=2&opg=n8871595&tag=artBody;col1
Pyre Jacques: Resplendent in Victory. By Francis J. Murphy. (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, Institute of Carmelite Studies. 1998. Pp. xiii, 200. $10.95 paperback.)
Francis J Murphy wrote a second book on Fr Jacques which is on Amazon Listen to the Silence
I have taken a quote from Francis J Murray. Note the above link.
I first saw Pere Jacques in May 1944 through the bars of block 27, in the infirmary of Gusen, where devoured by fever and stretched out on a pallet, with an arm slashed by a scalpel-I longed for a comforting smile from heaven. He brought it to me.
With our friends Jean Cayrol, Louis Boussel, and Gaston Passagey, he came each day for three months, morning and evening, with a word of encouragement. His bits and pieces of daily news were enlivened by an ardent optimism and strong faith in an early Allied victory. In these furtive predawn visits, I drew deeply from this miraculous source the stamina sorely needed for my own victory over an apparently definitive decline.
These long weeks of physical pain finally ended. Another existence, fraught with danger, was beginning-that of a factory worker. I was no longer a dying man but a resurrected one, and each day I witnessed Pere Jacques fully devoted to his work. And what a work! Little by little, his prestige asserted itself in the camp. He became a most respected personality, whose role, both moral and material, would be essential to the French community....
Many French, and foreigners too, met with him daily for words of encouragement and peace. Shunning prudence, he exposed himself to denunciation. However, he continued his ministry as the only priest in a camp of 20,000 men. He risked death at every second, since the S.S. would tolerate no religion other than Hitler-worship. His whole appearance was that of a man of action. Nre Jacques always
struck me as a fighter; he had the soul of a fighter. For him, nothing was too great an effort. He gave of himself just as naturally as others spared themselves. In the same way he lived a life of charity, with ardor and concern; he defended his points of view heatedly, vivaciously, and even sharply.... My last view of Gusen and of its drill yard, where so many had perished, is for me inseparable from the memory of the man, the priest, who in this multitude once more overcame every adversity and who, in the end, brought us the victory-the triumph of the human spirit over a system born of materialism and depravity. The great victor was the one who had survived these trials, just as the salamander survives fire. April 28, 1945! In our eyes, Pere Jacques was resplendent in victory.
... Nre Jacques, you who for months each morning and evening brought me words of comfort, affection, and love; you who sustained in me each day the feeble flame of life by your presence and your smile; you who prayed for a bad Christian and for the others; you who radiated in this death camp so much light, so much life; you who taught men, all men, true nobility of soul, enthusiasm of heart, and strength of mind; allow me, tonight, to give you this message from the living, the repatriated from Compiegne, Gusen, and Mauthausen, the beneficiaries of a miracle, Nre Jacques, we are always with you.
Monday, January 26, 2009
New blog for videos on various subjects
I have set up a link for topical videos I consider significant
www.myspace.com/edwardsGallery Go under the section of my recent blog entries
www.myspace.com/edwardsGallery Go under the section of my recent blog entries
A voice for peace
http://mousemedicine.blogspot.com/2009/01/voice-for-peace.html
I posted a comment to this blog and I heard the attached video. More is required for peace than an era of peace, but a perrmanent shift in the consciousness of many individuals in the world and an end to the main domineering of our selfishness which is ingrained in us . This shift is not likely to occur in our present state as we(most of us) are not willing to pay the price of peace. It's true and we (most of us again) tacitly know our flawed nature, ah! that's the rub.
I posted a comment to this blog and I heard the attached video. More is required for peace than an era of peace, but a perrmanent shift in the consciousness of many individuals in the world and an end to the main domineering of our selfishness which is ingrained in us . This shift is not likely to occur in our present state as we(most of us) are not willing to pay the price of peace. It's true and we (most of us again) tacitly know our flawed nature, ah! that's the rub.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Pope Pius XII Savior of the Jews?
Even until this day controversy rages if this Pontiff truly saved Jews during the Holocaust in the countless thousands. The answer is resoundingly yes and his silence was self imposed through the fear of anti Catholic and anti Jewish reprisals. A truthful film concerning the Pontiff was the film The Red and the Black with Gregory Peck and Sir Michael Gielgud as Pius XII . He arranged clandestine safe houses, namely monasteries and convents to shelter and house countless Jewish children and abundant proof attests to his lifesaving efforts. Some references will prove in order:http://catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=12994 note the attached video presentation here
http://popepiusxiiandthejews.blogspot.com/ A plethora of articles and news clips with factual allusions attest to his rescue efforts and rescue work in general .
Letter from Rabbi André Zaoui, http://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-24162 This letter and many more such documents attests to the Pontiff's lifesaving work. If ever someone deserved canonization, he does.
I honor and deem him a hero and among the blessed.
Also I will never ever forget the Jesuits heroic deeds in that era
The Jesuits hide and Rescue the Jews during the Holocaust
The Jesuits rescue and hiding of Jews in Italy during the holocaust is well known in some circles, now in many more circles than formerly.
The following post amply demonstrates their heroic stand.
http://www।firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5551
As partial explanation for the unbalanced impression many have of “Catholic indifference and inaction,” Lapomarda refers to the postwar Stalinist policy in Eastern Bloc countries. The Communist governments that took over these countries after 1945 consistently spread lies to the effect that Catholic authorities had collaborated with the Nazis during wartime occupations. When church leaders sought to correct such false accusations by bringing evidence before the people, they were usually thrown into prison or hunted down as traitors to their country. The result, says Lapomarda, “has been a silence so tight that the truth about much of the heroic efforts of various individuals in the Nazi era has been neglected. . . .” Lapomarda’s work is one of the first to breach that silence, especially with regard to the situations in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states, Yugoslavia, and Russia. He outlines in separate chapters the persecution of the Jesuits and their role in inspiring and sustaining Church resistance in Germany and throughout the different nations of occupied Europe.
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The following post amply demonstrates their heroic stand.
http://www।firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=5551
As partial explanation for the unbalanced impression many have of “Catholic indifference and inaction,” Lapomarda refers to the postwar Stalinist policy in Eastern Bloc countries. The Communist governments that took over these countries after 1945 consistently spread lies to the effect that Catholic authorities had collaborated with the Nazis during wartime occupations. When church leaders sought to correct such false accusations by bringing evidence before the people, they were usually thrown into prison or hunted down as traitors to their country. The result, says Lapomarda, “has been a silence so tight that the truth about much of the heroic efforts of various individuals in the Nazi era has been neglected. . . .” Lapomarda’s work is one of the first to breach that silence, especially with regard to the situations in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states, Yugoslavia, and Russia. He outlines in separate chapters the persecution of the Jesuits and their role in inspiring and sustaining Church resistance in Germany and throughout the different nations of occupied Europe.
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