IT MAKES SENSE TO ME
By Larry Peterson
By Larry Peterson
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| Venerable Angela Maris-The “Angel of Auschwitz” Photo Credit: Joachim Schäfer – Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon.ption |
By Larry Peterson
Maria Cacilia Autsch was born in Rollecken, Germany,
on March 26,1900. She was the fifth of
seven children and her dad, August, worked very hard as a machinist to keep his
family fed. He and his wife, Amalia, were
devout and knowledgeable Catholics and
worked diligently to pass the faith on to their children.
The family had little money, so when Maria was fifteen,
she went to work as a nanny. Her mom died in 1921 and Maria had to keep on
working to help the family. Maria had always known she was being called to
religious service and harbored her disappointment at not being able to do so. Her family came first,
and she turned her future over to Jesus.
Finally, on September 27, 1933, she was able to enter
the convent of the Trinitarian Order in Austria. It was the Spanish branch, and the Spanish had been the first women religious to come to Austria. The purpose
of the sisters was to help in securing the release of captive prisoners and
also working as nurses, teachers, and helping the poor and those in need.
On July 4, 1934, Maria Cacilia Autsch
received a new name. She received her habit and along with it the name of
Angela Maria of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. On August 20 she took her first vow.
Her duties were running the nursery school, teaching embroidery, caring for the
sick and even helping with the fieldwork. At last, on September 28, 1938, she
made her final vows.
By that time the Nazis had taken over
Austria, and they wanted to seize the monastery where the sisters lived. Sister
Angela defended their home and argued that it was legally Spanish property and
the Nazis had no right to it. She even contacted the Spanish consul in Vienna
and the Nazis, in an attempt to keep their activities quiet, relented. However,
Sister Angela Maria was now on their radar.
It was August 10, 1940, when the most
innocent of moments changed Sister Angela’s life forever. She had gone to buy
some milk and bumped into a few women she knew. They began to converse, and
Sister told them she had heard that the Allies had sunk a German ship and many
Germans had died in the disaster. She finished by saying that she thought “Hitler was a calamity for Europe.”
One of the Austrian women was a Nazi sympathizer and
reported her to the Gestapo. Her file was found,
and she was
arrested soon after. The charges were for “insulting the leader” and
“sedition of the population.” All attempts by her co-sisters to obtain her
release were simply ignored, and Mother Superior pleaded for her release with the head of the Gestapo several times but
to no avail. Even the Spanish consul
could not save her.
Sister Angela Maria of the Heart of Jesus spent seventeen days at the brutal police
detention center in Innsbruck. She was then assigned prisoner # 4651. With her
name now a number and without trial, she was transported
to the women’s camp at Ravensbruck.
True to her calling as a
Trinitarian Sister, Angela Maria, in the
most horrendous place imaginable, went right to work representing Jesus. Many reported of her unceasing efforts to
maintain human dignity. She is frequently beaten by the guards but, as one inmate
reported, “her smile and courage was a ray of sunshine in deepest hell.”
On
August 16, 1942, she was transferred to the death camp at Auschwitz and assigned
to the medical department. Because of her continued good spirit, self-sacrificing helpfulness and
her efforts to alleviate as much misery as she could, she became known as the
“Angel of Auschwitz.” Many of the other prisoners had no idea she was a
Catholic nun.
In October 1942, Sister Angela came
down with Typhus. She never fully recovered from this disease and was placed in
the SS hospital as a nurse. On December 23, 1943, a bombing raid began, and
Sister Angela was killed when she was struck in the chest with shrapnel that
pierced her lungs.
On May 21, 2018, Pope Francis
recognized the “heroic virtues” of Servant of God, Angela Maria of the Heart of
Jesus. She now has the title of “Venerable” before her name, and the next step
in her journey to canonization will be beatification.
We ask Venerable Angela Maria of the
Heart of Jesus, to pray for us all.
Copyright ©Larry Peterson
2018
