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 READINGFrom 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, 37Christ 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).