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    Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II
    Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II
    Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II
    Ebook138 pages1 hour

    Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II

    By Bob Lord and Penny Lord

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    Table of Contents: Martyrs They Died for Christ Part
    The Polish Martyrs
    Father Jerzy Popieluszko
    11 Nuns of Nowogrodek
    Martyrs of Auschwitz
    Saint Edith Stein
    Saint Maxmilian Kolbe
    Saint Joan of Arc
    Archbishop Oscar Romero

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJourneys of Faith
    Release dateSep 17, 2011
    ISBN9781466179967
    Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II
    Author

    Bob Lord

    Bob and Penny Lord renowned Catholic Authors and hosts on EWTN. They are best known for their media on Miracles of the Eucharist and Many Faces of Mary. They have been dubbed experts on the Catholic Saints. They produced over 200 television programs for EWTN global television network and wrote over 25 books and hundreds of ebooks.

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      Book preview

      Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II - Bob Lord

      Martyrs They Died for Christ Part II

      Bob and Penny Lord

      Published by Bob and Penny Lord at Smashwords

      Copyright 2011 Bob and Penny Lord

      Discover other titles by Bob and Penny Lord at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/bobandpennylord

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashword.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

      Table of Contents: Martyrs They Died for Christ Part

      The Polish Martyrs

      Martyrs of Auschwitz

      Saint Joan of Arc

      Archbishop Oscar Romero

      The Polish Martyrs

      In 1945, the Nazi war machine was finally crushed and cities and countries all over Europe were being liberated by the Allied Forces. Great shouts of joy could be heard. Young girls in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, and other cities across Europe kissed young G.I.'s and other liberating forces. Churches were filled with Masses of Thanksgiving. Prayers of gratitude were offered up by the tens of thousands to Our Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary for finally ending the hell to which these dear people had been subjected for the last six years. It was a new beginning, a new world for Europe.

      But not quite all. East of Germany and west of Russia, the little country of Poland was not liberated by anyone. It just changed tyrants. It was evacuated by the Nazi troops, and just taken over by a different monster, the Soviet Union. At the end of World War II, when Hitler knew the end was inevitably close, he had initiated his Scorched Earth policy, which, stated simply, meant, Burn everything to the ground. Don't leave anything for the Allies to capture. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, was almost completely destroyed. We're told that 85% of the city burned to the ground. When Eisenhower came through some months after the war ended, he wept at the all-out devastation he witnessed. And yet, while this ruination was being inflicted on the people of Poland, the Russian Army, which was supposed to be our allies, sat on the other side of the Wisla River and just watched. Then, when it was finished, they simply marched in and took over, according to a pre-ordained agreement made by Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference in February, 1945. The Communists continued the rule of tyranny over this nation for the next forty-five years. A perfect example of the way things were changed is indicated by a street in Czestochowa, a great Marian shrine. Before World War II, the street was named Mary Strasse. In 1939, when the Nazis came in, it was renamed Hitler Strasse. In 1946, it was renamed again, this time, Stalin Strasse. In 1990, it was renamed one more time, back to Mary Strasse.

      When we planned this book, we didn't actually plan a section for Polish Martyrs. We planned this segment for St. Maxmillian Kolbe, and Blessed Edith Stein, Martyrs of the death Camp at Auschwitz. We honestly didn't know what else we could write about with regard to Polish martyrs. We didn't know of any other Polish Martyrs. We had such a surprise waiting for us. Thank God we went to Poland before we finished writing this book.

      The Lord gave us the gift of traveling to Poland in May of 1993, to videotape shrines of Poland. We had an agenda. We knew exactly what we were going to shoot, and for what reason. But the Lord had His own Agenda, and it far surpassed anything we had in mind. We knew we wanted to go to Niepokolanow, City of the Immaculata, where Maxmilian Kolbe had the largest Franciscan complex, 800 brothers and priests, in the history of the Franciscan order. We had to visit Czestochowa, a city of our Lady, where she has been venerated by the Polish people on about the same scale as Our Lady of Guadalupe is by the Mexicans, but we never thought we would fall so in love with our Lady at this shrine as we did, or with the Polish people who venerate her here. Sister Faustina had been beatified the month before we arrived, and so we fully planned to trace her life in Warsaw and Krakow. We also knew we had to go to Auschwitz, the death camp which made martyrs of St. Maxmilian Mary Kolbe and Blessed Edith Stein. We were not looking forward to that trip. We had been told that once someone goes to Auschwitz, they are haunted by what they see. One never wants to go back again. But they never forget Auschwitz. We knew we had to experience Auschwitz. Our chapter on Maxmilian Kolbe would never be complete until we stood in Cell Block 11, that infamous block where no one ever comes out alive, and where he died on August 14, 1941. We wept bitter tears with the Angels over the waste of human lives, Children of God. We knew we had to stand at the site of the little white cottage at Birkenau, a section of Auschwitz, where Edith Stein and her sister entered on August 9, 1942, and were immediately gassed with Cyanide. There were large white wooden Crosses and Stars of David scattered throughout the field, and human bones could still be picked up from the remains of the funeral pyres where the bodies had been burned after having been gassed. We knew we had to do this!

      We were not prepared, however, for the ongoing suffering this people had endured for the last fifty-one years (1939-1990) that we know of, and then some. Before the United States ever got into World War II, Poland had already been taken over, and Maxmilian Kolbe martyred. Before the Jews were ever brought to Auschwitz, it was used as a Concentration Camp for Polish prisoners, intellectuals, Catholic priests, and others labeled dangerous. And from the other side, the Russian side, twenty-one thousand Polish soldiers were massacred by Josef Stalin in a place called Katyn in 1940. The Warsaw Ghetto incident occurred, in which over 300,000 Polish Jews were rounded up from the Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw, and shipped off to Concentration Camps. The atrocities go on and on. We could really write a huge book just about the Polish martyrs and never end.

      No sooner had we decided to add this martyr, or that group of martyrs than people came up with yet another martyr for us to consider. And for the most part, these are all Twentieth Century martyrs. We chose to share with you the first martyr of Poland, St. Stanislaus, mostly because he was the first Polish canonized saint, who was actually born Polish and died a Martyr. But with that exception, all the atrocities took place from 1939 on, and the most recent, Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko was martyred in 1984.

      We have narrowed our choice down to three martyrs of Poland, in addition to Maxmilian Kolbe and Edith Stein. They are St. Stanislaus, the first Polish Martyr, and Patron Saint of Poland, the Eleven Nuns of the Order of the Holy Family of Nazareth, who were brutally murdered by Nazi troops in the woods of Nowogrodek on August 1, 1943, as a representative of the atrocities of the Nazi occupation, and Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, spiritual director of Solidarity, murdered by Communists on October 19, 1984, as a symbol of the Occupation by the Soviet Union. We know that we are missing more Polish Martyrs than we're writing about, but if we were to write about all the Polish people who have been martyred, we would never stop writing, and we would never stop crying. Come with us, then, as we tell you about the people of Poland and their heroes, our brothers and sisters, the Saints.

      St. Stanislaus - Bishop of Krakow - 1079

      Stanislaus Szczepanoski was born in 1030. He was considered the answer to his parents' prayers, as they were advanced in age when the Lord gave him to them. They adored this child, as did everyone with whom he came in contact. His parents guided him on the path of a religious vocation. He was very learned, having been educated at the best universities in Poland. He determined to use his God-given gifts to serve the Church and people of Krakow.

      His Bishop, Lampert Zula, immediately saw the spiritual as well as intellectual virtues of young Stanislaus. After the Bishop had ordained him, he made him preacher of the Cathedral of Krakow, as well as Archdeacon. His preaching was brilliant, truly inspired. A great deal of conversions, and moral reformation took place as a result of Stanislaus' preaching. He developed a large following in Krakow.

      The Bishop wanted to retire, but had waited until he could find someone he could trust with the office of Bishop of Krakow. He found his man in Stanislaus. He tried to retire, and turn his office over to Stanislaus, but the young Priest refused out of humility. However, when the Bishop died, he could not refuse the post any longer. Especially when he was ordered by the Pope, Alexander II. In 1072, he was ordained Bishop, and made Bishop of Krakow.

      There was a ruler in Poland at that time, Boleslaus II. He may have had some redeeming qualities, but none were very obvious. What the entire population of Poland, as well as the Church could see was that he had a great lust for women, a craving which could not easily be satisfied. He had many run-ins with Bishop Stanislaus, but because the Bishop and the church were so loved by the people, Boleslaus made believe he was repentant. It's possible he was really sincere in his efforts to change his ways, but there's nothing very definite that he really ever tried to stop running after women.

      The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, came when Boleslaus met a woman who was extremely beautiful. She was breathtaking. She was married to a nobleman. That didn't make any difference to Boleslaus. He had to have her. He was completely crushed when she fought off his advances, but he was not discouraged. He actually kidnapped her, and took her off to his palace. This caused a tremendous outrage among the

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