Priests and Martyrs Part 3 - Lubeck Martyrs (Germany)

Three Catholic martyrs executed under the Nazi regime were beatified in Germany on June 25th 2011. The event was also noteworthy for its rememberance of their Lutheran companion.

Fathers Hermann Lange, Eduard Müller and Johannes Prassek, along with Lutheran pastor Karl Friedrich Stellbrink, were guillotined in a Hamburg prison in November 1943. The Nazi regime found them guilty of “defeatism, malice, favoring the enemy and listening to enemy broadcasts.”

At a ceremony in the northern German city of Lubeck, Cardinal Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, declared the trio of Catholic clergy to be ‘blessed.’ He also expressed an ‘honorable remembrance’ for the priests’ fellow Christian martyr, Pastor Stellbrink.

“What distinguishes these four also is the fact that in the face of National-Socialist despotism they overcame the divide between the two faiths to find a common path to fight and act together,” says the official history which accompanied the ceremony.

It’s estimated that over 9,000 pilgrims – both Catholic and Protestant – attended the Beatification ceremony. Twenty Catholic and four Protestant bishops planned to attend.

On June 24 Lutheran Vespers were prayed for the martyrs at Lubeck’s Memorial Church. Former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper, spoke at the ceremony.

The official history recounts that the men would copy and distribute the anti-Nazi sermons of Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of the Catholic Diocese of Munster.

“They felt, like many others, the liberating tone of these sermons, which broke the silence and proclaimed aloud the thoughts many had in their hearts, when the Nazi action for the ‘destruction of unworthy lives’ began, the euthanasia of innocent mentally retarded persons,” the history says.

The men’s last letters, written just hours before their deaths, have been preserved and were put on display this weekend. Father Johannes Prassek wrote his family:

“I am so happy, I can hardly explain how happy. God is so good to have given me several beautiful years in which to be his priest. “Do not be sad! What is waiting for me is joy and good fortune, with which all the happiness and good fortune here on earth cannot compare.”

Father Eduard Muller wrote to his bishop:  “It gives me great pleasure to be able to write a few lines to you in this, my last hour. Whole-heartedly, I thank you first of all for the greatest gift which you gave me as a successor of the apostles, when you placed you hands on me and ordained me as God’s priest.  “But now we must embark upon this – in human terms difficult- final walk, which is to lead us to Him, whom we served as priests.”

Beatification is public recognition by the Catholic Church that a deceased person has entered Heaven. It is the third of the four steps towards canonization and confers the title “blessed.”

Hamburg, Germany, Jun 25, 2011 / 12:02 pm From: (CNA/EWTN News)

Bl Anna Schaeffer declared Saint on Sunday 21st October

Eucharistic Miracle of Erding, Germany 1417

A poor peasant of Erding could find no way to improve his economic state, despite working many hours every day. His neighbor on the other hand, who did the same work, succeeded in living prosperously. One day the peasant asked his neighbor how he had succeeded in earning so much and the man confided to him that his success was owed to the fact that he kept the Blessed Sacrament in his house. The poor peasant, ignorant in the faith, thought that the Blessed Sacrament was a type of amulet, and decided to imitate his neighbor. He went to Mass on Holy Thursday and after having received Communion, hid the Host in his clothes and left the church with the Holy Eucharist. During his journey, however, his conscience began to accuse him, so he decided to bring the Sacred Particle

back. During the trip, however, the Host slipped from his hand and disappeared in the air. He searched everywhere, to no avail. Frightened by what had happened, he immediately ran to inform the pastor, who immediately went to the spot where the Host had disappeared.

As soon as he arrived the priest saw the Sacred Particle resting on a clump of dirt, emitting a bright light. He reached for the Sacred Host, which again flew up in the air and disappeared. The priest alerted the Bishop who wanted to go in person to the site of the miracle.  And again the Sacred Particle flew up in the air. The Bishop and the townspeople then decided to build a chapel in honor of the Eucharistic Wonder. There were so many

crowds of pilgrims that flocked there that in 1675, local authorities decided to construct a new and bigger sanctuary in the baroque style.  On Sept 19, 1677, Bishop Kaspar Kunner of Freising blessed the new church, which was dedicated to the Most Precious Blood. Various relics were brought to the sanctuary among which was that of the Most Precious Blood of Christ. Since 1992 the sanctuary has been under the care of the monks of St. Paul of the Desert.



Eucharistic Miracle - Augsburg, Germany 1194

In 1194, a woman from Augsburg who was particularly devoted to the Most Holy Sacrament, received Holy communion.  After communion, without being noticed, she put the Host in a handkerchief, took the Blessed Sacrament home and placed the Eucharistic Species in a container of wax inside a cupboard. In those days it was very difficult to find tabernacles in the church so as to be able to practice Eucharistic worship. Only in 1264, with the introduction of the Feast of Corpus Domini (Corpus Christi) did such devotion become commonplace.

Five years passed and on the 11th of May 1199, the woman, tormented by remorse, confessed to the superior of the convent of the Heilig Kreuz, Father Berthold, who had her bring the Host back. The priest opened up the wax covering that enclosed the Host and saw that the Holy Eucharist had been transformed into bleeding Flesh. The Host appeared “divided into two Parts connected together by the thin threads of the bleeding Flesh.” Father Berthold went immediately to the bishop of the city of Udalskalk who ordered that the Miraculous Host be "transferred, accompanied by the clergy and by the people into the cathedral and exhibited in an ostensorium of crystal for public worship.”

The miracle continued:  the Host began to grow and to swell up and this phenomenon lasted before the eyes of all from Easter Sunday until the Feast of St. John the Baptist. Following this, Bishop Udalskalk had the Host brought back near the convent of the Heilig Kreuz and proclamed that “in memory of such a memorable and extraordinary event,” there should be a special commemoration each year in honor of the holy relic.  In 1200, Count Rechber donated to the Augustinian Fathers a rectangular chest of silver with an opening in the front for the placement of the Host of the miracle. Besides the Eucharistic miracle, other extraordinary incidences took place, such as the apparition of the Host with Baby Jesus dressed in white with radiant face and His forehead encircled with a crown of gold, or in another case the bleeding of the crucifix of the church, or the apparition of Jesus.

Reference:  http://www.therealpresence.org/

Eucharistic Miracle of Bettbrun, Germany 1125

The building of the village of Bettbrunn and of the present-day Church of the Holy Savior owe their existence to a Eucharistic miracle that took place in 1125. In the place where the town and the church are located now, there was once only a small farm called Viehbrunn; next to it was a well that was used to give water to the livestock. The owner was a man who was deeply devoted to the Most Holy Sacrament. This man lived an hour and a half away from the parish church of Tholling and he was not always able to attend Mass. Because of his zeal, he decided to solve the problem of not always being able to attend church by secretly stealing a Sacred Host and taking the Blessed Sacrament home with him. The farmer took the stick that he always brought with him and made an opening on the top end of it, into which he placed the Sacred Host. Every day, when the livestock were resting, he stuck his stick into the ground and knelt before the Most Holy Sacrament for many hours. For several months, the man continued in this manner until one day, without thinking, he impulsively threw the stick with the Blessed Sacrament at a herd that had strayed too far.

The Host fell on the ground and the farmer, deeply saddened, bent down to pick up the Blessed Sacrament. Every attempt to lift the Host up proved to be futile and when he did not know what else to do he sent for the parish priest of Tholling. But the priest was also not able to pick up the Blessed Sacrament and finally they approached the Bishop Hartwich of Regensburg, who immediately went to the place of the miracle with all his clergymen. Only when he promised to build a chapel in that place did he succeed in picking up the Host from the ground. In 1125, the building of the chapel was completed and the precious relic was kept in this place until 1330 when a fire destroyed everything.

Reference: http://www.therealpresence.org/