Priests and Martyrs Part 1 - Bl. Jerzy Popieluszko (Poland)

The above video is from various homilies given by Bl. Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko, one of which he gave to the Holy Father Pope John Paul II (whose feast we celebrate today 22nd October).  Subtitled in English. 

Fr Jerzy Popieluszko,  (Poland) now Blessed was neither a social nor a political activist, but a Catholic priest faithful to the Gospel. He wasn't a forceful speaker, but someone of deep conviction and integrity. His sanctity lay in fundamental righteousness that gave people hope even in horrendous situations. He knew that all totalitarian systems are based on terror and intimidation. The Communists saw him as an enemy because he freed people from fear of the system. He exposed the hypocrisy of the Communist regime and he taught believers how to confront totalitarianism. How often Jerzy made St Paul's words his own in his preaching: "Fight evil with good".

On October 19, 1984, the young priest was kidnapped by security agents on his way back to Warsaw after a visit to a parish in the neighboring town of Bydgoszcz. He was savagely beaten until he lost consciousness, and his body was tied up in such a way that he would strangle himself by moving. His weighted body was then thrown into a deep reservoir. His killers carried out their task with unprecedented brutality, which shows their hatred of the faith that the priest embodied. Jerzy's driver, who managed to escape, told what had happened to the press. On 30 October, Popieluszko's bound and gagged body was found in the freezing waters of a reservoir near Wloclawek. Fr Jerzy's brutal murder was widely believed to have hastened the collapse of communist rule in Poland.

He has been recognized as a martyr by the Catholic Church, and was beatified on June 6, 2010

Above two paragraphs from :  http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/jerzyp.HTM

For more on his life:  http://www.popieluszko.net.pl/english/xjerzy_en/biografia_en.php


We are now living in the most difficult times in our Church where we see so much sin, rebellion and dissent.  In this series, I now put forward the examples of great Priests who gave their lives for the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Truth in a world where values are turned upside down and where evil is now seen as a good.  We do not know what the future holds but we too may be asked to give our lives for the sake of Christ and His Gospel.  That future is already there for many in some parts of the world where Christians are now being killed for simply being Christian.  We pray to God through the intercession of all the Martyrs for our Church and for courage to withstand whatever comes in the future and we ask for the gift of final perseverance in our faith.  

Sacramentum Caritatis - Part 85 - Pope Benedict XVI

The Eucharist and Witness

85. The first and fundamental mission that we receive from the sacred mysteries we celebrate is that of bearing witness by our lives. The wonder we experience at the gift God has made to us in Christ gives new impulse to our lives and commits us to becoming witnesses of his love. We become witnesses when, through our actions, words and way of being, Another makes himself present. Witness could be described as the means by which the truth of God's love comes to men and women in history, inviting them to accept freely this radical newness. Through witness, God lays himself open, one might say, to the risk of human freedom. Jesus himself is the faithful and true witness (cf. Rev 1:5; 3:14), the one who came to testify to the truth (cf. Jn 18:37).

Here I would like to reflect on a notion dear to the early Christians, which also speaks eloquently to us today: namely, witness even to the offering of one's own life, to the point of martyrdom. Throughout the history of the Church, this has always been seen as the culmination of the new spiritual worship: "Offer your bodies" (Rom 12:1). One thinks, for example, of the account of the martyrdom of Saint Polycarp of Smyrna, a disciple of Saint John: the entire drama is described as a liturgy, with the martyr himself becoming Eucharist. (235) We might also recall the eucharistic imagery with which Saint Ignatius of Antioch describes his own imminent martyrdom: he sees himself as "God's wheat" and desires to become in martyrdom "Christ's pure bread." (236) The Christian who offers his life in martyrdom enters into full communion with the Pasch of Jesus Christ and thus becomes Eucharist with him. Today too, the Church does not lack martyrs who offer the supreme witness to God's love. Even if the test of martyrdom is not asked of us, we know that worship pleasing to God demands that we should be inwardly prepared for it. (237) Such worship culminates in the joyful and convincing testimony of a consistent Christian life, wherever the Lord calls us to be his witnesses.