December 2, Blessed John Francis (Jan Franciszek) Macha, Presbyter and Martyr

December 2 In the Archdiocese of Katowice BLESSED JOHN FRANCIS MACHA, PRESBYTER and MARTYR Optional memorial

John Francis Macha was born in 1914 in Chorzów Stary (Upper Silesia). In 1939 he was ordained presbyter of the diocese of Katowice. Selfless, he hastened to help the families that found themselves in trouble during World War II. Arrested by the Gestapo, he was imprisoned and persecuted for faith and faithfulness to priesthood. He was executed on the guillotine in the jail of Katowice on 3 December 1942.

Common of One Martyr or of Pastors.

OFFICE OF READINGS

SECOND READING

From a homily by Blessed John Francis Macha (Ruda Śląska, St. Joseph Church, 31 August 1940) An Engaged Christianity

The Church is never left untouched by the changes of ages. As it was before, she also today finds herself in the midst of struggles. We must ask ourselves today why so many people feel indignant about Christianity and the Church. Perhaps God lets this violent storm rage around the tree of the Church so that its rotten branches may fall off and the tree itself may take its roots deeper in the soil? We shall not be able to make any deeper sense of the miserable circumstances that have befallen Christianity today unless we hear in them the voice of God that calls on us to come to our senses and to make an examination of conscience.

Our Christianity is all too often becoming a thoughtless habit. We might be reciting our morning and evening prayers, we might pray before and after a meal, but we tend to do it more with our lips and less with our hearts. It has become part of the rhythm of our daily lives. We quite often receive the Sacraments, yet even this has become a habit so that neither Confession nor Communion leave any traces in our lives. To sum it all up, our Christianity still has a number of spiritual forms, but it no longer has a lot of soul or substance. It lacks interiority, depth and warmth. An out-of-habit Christianity is not mature enough to face trials either. O Christian! Fight, conquer and hold what you have inherited from your forefathers! Faith can no longer be a matter of habit! Its truths, which we have been hearing since childhood, must consume us and capture our interest. In a word, we must become living Christians again! Our Christianity only too often is more similar to an undemanding Sunday Christianity. For too many people religion is but a beautiful shell of life, but is no longer a driving force that lifts and permeates the entire life. Is it not the case that we tend to treat our religion like a Sunday dress that we put on for a festive day in the morning and then hang back up in the wardrobe for the rest of the week? We stroll gracefully and neatly to the church, we pray, we listen to the homily, we confess and receive the Communion. Yet, inside of us there lives a lay person, perfectly separated from the religious one. In marriage, in families, on the street and at work we live and behave in the exact same manner as many other people who do not believe in God.

This is an evil that our Christianity has gone down with. The dissonance between religion and life, a merry and undemanding Sunday Christianity. Let us be blunt. If our religion is but a “Sunday thing” and we do not draw any ideals or strength from it in order to handle our everyday toils, what is the use of such religion? See this as a calling of our times and as a calling from God in today’s struggle for faith. O Christian! Put your religion again at the core of your daily life!

RESPONSORY Rom 8:34-35, 37

Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. – What will separate us from the love of Christ? Anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?

In all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. – What will separate us from the love of Christ? Anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?

CONCLUDING PRAYER Almighty God, thanks to your grace, Blessed John Francis, Presbyter, filled with pastoral zeal, laid down his life, helping victims of the war. Grant that we, strengthened by his intercession, may bravely confess our faith and grow daily in the active love of you and of neighbors. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. – Amen.

Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum. Probatum seu confirmatum, die 27 augusti 2020, Prot. N. 338/20.

Translated by HosSPr (2023).

May 19, Blessed Elizabeth (Elżbieta) Czacka, Religious

May 17
In the Archdiocese of Warszawa
BLESSED ELIZABETH CZACKA, VIRGIN
Optional memorial

She was born on 22 October 1876 in a family of landowners in Biała Cerkiew (currently in Ukraine). When she was 22, she lost her sight, which she saw as a calling to the service of the blind. After years of preparation, in 1910 she founded in Warsaw the Association of the Care for the Blind and in 1918 the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters Servants of the Cross. Both institutions make up the Work of the Blind that has been found in Laski, near Warsaw, since 1922. She testified with her life that spiritual blindness that may be a harsher disability than a physical one; therefore, she would involve the blind in the apostolate among the spiritually blind and in the reparation for the world’s spiritual blindness. She died on 15 May 1961 and on 12 September 2021 Pope Francis declared her blessed.

Common of Virgins.

OFFICE OF READINGS

SECOND READING

From the notes of Blessed Elizabeth Czacka, Virgin
(Pisma, tom I: Laski, 4 II 1929)
The Might of God’s Power Flows from the Cross over All Humanity

I am currently living again in the presence of the Lord Jesus Crucified. I can sense him over me. I can see him with my soul’s eyes among people. From him flows the blood over all the world. The power of his Divinity runs down and people cannot see it, they do not realize it. Even the faithful and the devoted do not realize that Lord Jesus is still present among us, that his passion is still happening in the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass, from which graces are continually flowing over humankind. Although the passion of the Cross happened once, it is still happening in its effects. On Golgotha, if we remain by Lord Jesus’s side like his contemporaries and like all the generations of people who lived before us, we are all genuinely and truly present in Lord Jesus’s passion on the Cross. Jesus, being God, saw us all and has been seeing us by his side. All the merits of his passion flow on us and his Most Holy Blood  really washes us. Lord Jesus’s Divinity, thanks to his merits, really penetrates and sanctifies us. The sacrifice lasts endlessly. It defends us, poor ones, from God’s rightful wrath. So many sins! The majority of people have turned away from God, our Creator, our Benefactor. The sacrifice is still happening and it saves souls, pulling them out from hell. At the foot of the Crucified One we cannot stay idle. Lord Jesus does not wants only the meditation of his passion, the pointless and lifeless emotion felt from the outside, but he wants us to save souls with him. He wants us to make use of his Most Holy Blood to wash away our own sins and the sins of our loved ones, of our enemies, the sins of the entire humanity; to make use of his Divinity, His merits to bring back to life so many souls that lie immersed in the death of sin. The might of God’s power flows from the Cross over all humanity—the might and power of the Blood that runs from the Cross. And blind people cannot see that. They close their souls to God’s power and to his Blood flowing from the Cross.

We need to let ourselves be penetrated by the Divinity. We need to let ourselves be penetrated by the Blood. We need to get soaked in it. It must be offered to God for us and for all humanity. On the Cross there is our Savior. Per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso (Through him, with him and in him) is our salvation, our holiness. From the Cross flows love onto our souls. The love that flows from the Cross onto our souls ignites love of God in our hearts. It ignites love of our neighbors. The Love—the Holy Spirit—prays in us, he takes possession of us. What a fulness of life in those mysteries. What a joy to be an obedient tool of God. To remain in God, and he in us.

RESPONSORY 1 Pet 2:21b, 24

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.
– By his wounds you have been healed.

He himself bore our sins in his body upon the cross, so that, free from sin, we might live for righteousness.
– By his wounds you have been healed.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

God, Fount of all holiness,
you have given Blessed Elizabeth, Virgin, the grace of the union with Christ’s passion and called her to serve you in the blind of body and soul,
grant through her intercession so that we may embrace and love our daily cross as our way to heaven.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum. Probatum seu confirmatum, die 29 iulii 2021, Prot. N. 248/21.

Translated by HosSPr (2023).

May 28, Blessed Stephen (Stefan) Wyszyński, Bishop

May 28
BLESSED STEPHEN WYSZYŃSKI, BISHOP
Optional memorial

Stephen (Stefan) Wyszyński was born on 3 August 1901 in Zuzela. He entered the seminary of Włocławek where he was ordained priest in 1924. In 1946 he was appointed Bishop of Lublin and in 1948—Metropolitan Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw and Primate of Poland. He was imprisoned for over 3 years by the contemporary communist authorities that were overtly fighting the Church. He participated in the Vatican II and was prudently introducing its decisions in the Polish Church. He died in the opinion of sanctity on 28 May 1981 and was buried in the Archcathedral of Warsaw.

Common of Pastors.

OFFICE OF READINGS

SECOND READING

From a Homily of Blessed Stephen Wyszyński, Bishop
(A homily delivered during the Celebration of the Millennium of Poland’s Baptism, 24 June 1966: Dzieła zebrane, t. XVII, Warszawa 2016, 201-207)
A Baptized Nation That Looks Toward Tomorrow

This is a baptized nation that, considering its history, looks today toward tomorrow. In its journey into the new millennium of faith it draws on the trophies of the twenty centuries of the Church and the millennial Polish Church—it draws on the thoughts of the Council and the richness of the Great Novena. It takes as its equipment the teaching about the great dignity of each person, whether they are magnificent or battered, mighty or inept, alongside an indication: “you shall love your neighbor.” Each neighbor! The one with kind eyes and the one whose eyes are glassy; the one whose chest burns and the one whose heart is stone; the one who stretches his brotherly hand and the one who stabs you with their eyes. Each one! God makes no boundaries between people, but he says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Basing your love in the Fount that never runs dry, in the Heart of God who is Love, you ought to draw thence water like a flower and smile lovingly at all those around you—at the ones who love you and to the ones who hate you. As the Apostle instructs, “Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good.” Do not let yourself be provoked. Keep calm. Respect even the one who hates you, because by so doing you will heap “burning coals” upon your adversary’s head. I keep teaching you that the one who loves is the one who wins, even if they are left battered and trampled upon. The one who tramples others with hatred has lost. Who hates has lost! Who feeds on hate has lost! Who fights with God has lost! And who loves, who forgives, who lays down their heart, their life for their enemies—like Christ—has won, even if they are lying trampled on the floor.

Out of the twenty centuries of her experience, the Church has derived a mighty teaching about human dignity that need be defended by love that we ought to have for every person. Only then shall we understand what the Church brings into the new millennium of faith. The one who has closed themselves in hatred has already been ruined! However, the one who emerged in God’s light out of the hell of hatred, who has looked toward all God’s children with no exception and said: “O Friend! O Brother! My poor brother—yet still brother—has been reborn. Let us exchange the word “sir” for “brother” in every context.  May this word be grafted in the heart that loves. O Mother of Beautiful Love! Take beneath your protection the entire nation that lives for your glory! Take into your motherly Heart this entire nation, every heart and soul, every child and adolescent, every mother and father! We desire so fervently to leave this shrine transformed, new, different as we are treading toward the new millennium of faith.

Dear children! Here before you stands your Bishop, Bishop of Warsaw—the undefeated town, the fearless town that is a forge of new days and new times—and God willing— of better time; the restless and calming town where death and life were locked in a terrifying duel. Yet, Christ won because he is the Father of the new millennium for Warsaw, for the diocese, for Poland and for the world. O Mother! If heroic faith is a weakness, forgive me, because I have such faith! With this heroic faith I bow before you, O Lord’s Handmaid, beseeching you humbly to teach me to serve my people in the same manner as your Son who took the form of a slave and said, “If anyone wishes to be first among you, he shall be the servant of all.” At your feet, O Handmaid of the Lord, we place our lives, hearts, minds and wills—all we have and love, asking you to teach us to serve one another in humility and love. This will be our greatest victory, the gift and endowment for the new millennium of faith.

RESPONSORY 2 Tim 4:2, 5; cf. Acts 20:28

Proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.
– Be self-possessed in all circumstances; perform the work of an evangelist.

Keep watch over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God.
– Be self-possessed in all circumstances; perform the work of an evangelist.

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Mighty and eternal God,
you gave Blessed Stephen, Bishop, a good and brave pastor, to the Church,
grant through his intercession that we may serve you, the only God, live faithful to the Gospel and love every person.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

Congregatio de Cultu Divino et Disciplina Sacramentorum. Probatum seu confirmatum, die 5 octobris 2020, Prot. N. 141/20.

[1] Translated by HosSPr (2023).