At empty shrine, Fatima cardinal says Church is spiritually united with Mary

Szombathely, Hungary, May 1, 2018 / 12:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Fr. János Brenner, a Cistercian Hungarian priest who was martyred in the 1950s, was beatified May 1. The beatification took place in Szombathely, Hungary, the same location where the Communist government had tried to prevent the faithful from attending Brenner’s funeral 60 years ago.

Brenner was born on Dec. 27, 1931 in Szombathely, Hungary. He attended Catholic schools run by the Cistercian order for several years until the nationalization of schools by the communist government which came to power after World War II as part of the Eastern Bloc.

He was accepted as a novice to the Cistercian order in Zirc in 1950, and took the name Br. Anastasius (Anasztáz).

However, only a few months after Brenner began formation, the communist government began suppressing religious houses. To protect the men in formation, the novice master moved the young brothers from the abbey to private apartments, where they hoped to continue formation in secret.

It was around this time that Brenner, along with a few other novices, moved to the local seminary to begin studying to become a priest, while continuing with his Cistercian formation through correspondence.

Despite the dangers and religious oppression going on around him, journal entries from Brenner at the time display a deep trust in God and a strong desire to do his will.

“There is no greater joy than when man, who is nothing, can be even more annihilated in Christ and immerse himself into the infinite world of His soul, filled with wonderful riches which are forever given over to us,” he wrote in 1950.

“Even if the road is rough, I look at your pain-ridden face and follow you. I ask you only one thing: May I always fulfill most precisely what you give to me as my vocation.”

Brenner took vows with the Cistercian order and then was ordained a priest in 1955.

Throughout his ministry, he was known for his willingness and readiness to serve and to sacrifice, and took as his priestly motto the verse Romans 8:28: “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”

Brenner was especially talented at working with youth, which made him a greater target of the communist government.

Even when he was made aware of personal threats against his life, and his bishop offered to transfer him elsewhere for his own safety, Brenner responded: “I’m not afraid, I’m happy to stay.”

On the night of Dec. 14, 1957, Brenner was falsely called to give last rites to a sick person in a neighboring town, amid the reprisals for the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

He left his home, carrying his anointing oils and the Eucharist, but was ambushed in the woods outside Rabakethely and stabbed 32 times. He was found dead the next day, still clutching the Eucharist in his hands, which has earned him the title of the “Hungarian Tarcisius” – a reference to the young third century martyr who was also killed while carrying and protecting the Eucharist.

While the communists had hoped that Brenner’s death would intimidate the faithful in the area, they could not stop devotion to Brenner’s memory. The Chapel of the Good Pastor was built in 1989 on the spot where he died, and is a popular place of pilgrimage for people throughout the country. The dirty and bloodied surplice Brenner wore when he was killed has been preserved as a relic.

Brenner’s martyrdom was acknowledged by Pope Francis in November 2017.
 
 
 

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CNA Staff, Sep 2, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- A Polish bishop dismissed Wednesday suggestions that the country’s bishops want to force people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to undergo therapy.

In a Sept. 2 statement, Bishop J… […]

Rome, Italy, May 25, 2017 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At a presentation for his new book on Wednesday, Cardinal Robert Sarah said that not only does the Church need silence, but the act of being in silence and of listening to God is efficient, in its own way.

“We have seen we must talk, we must do something, we must act; but silence is an act of adoration, it is an act of goodness, so it’s not about doing something that is efficient,” said Cardinal Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

“Silence is (itself) very, very efficient. It gives you the opportunity to see yourself, to listen to yourself, to listen to God.”

Cardinal Sarah said that he wrote The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise because “we need silence, not only regarding the liturgy, but even to read a book, to listen to music.”

“To have rest, you need silence,” he continued, “and silence helps one to see inside oneself.”

People are in a very “awkward” situation, he said. “We never have silence in our lives, from the beginning to the last hours of the day. We listen to rumors, news, radio, the telephone. We need silence, anyway, to meet God and to have a very human life. Man needs to be silent.”

Cardinal Sarah spoke to EWTN May 24 after a presentation on the German edition of his book, given at the church of Santa Maria dell’Anima near Piazza Navona in Rome.

The German edition is unique because it has an afterword written by Benedict XVI, marking one of the rare occasions he has spoken publicly or published any sort of document since his 2013 resignation.

This came about after Benedict read the book, Cardinal Sarah said, when he approached the cardinal to say he would like to write an afterword for the German edition. Silence “is a fountain for my spiritual life,” Cardinal Sarah recalled him saying.

“I think that Pope Benedict is very interested in liturgy. And liturgy needs silence,” he said, explaining that Benedict told him the book had moved his heart deeply. “I said: ‘I’m very honored, Holy Father, please do it.’ It was his own initiative.”

During his presentation, Cardinal Sarah said that “when creation knows how to place itself in silence, God makes his voice heard.”

If we want to combat the modern problem and confusion in the world and in the Church, the solution, he told EWTN, is that “we must pray.”

In addition to prayer, we should uphold the doctrines of the Church and the family, as well as be faithful to the doctrines, he said.

“God will give us the right way to walk, you know: [that] confusion is not a good way to live. If we see clearly the way, then we can walk with security. So I think we must hold firmly to doctrine, and pray.”

He went on to say that is hopeful about the future of the liturgy in the Church, however, because many young priests do believe in and understand the importance of silence, which gives him confidence that there could be change in the future.

In his presentation the cardinal was careful to point out that finding and making silence in our lives and liturgy wasn’t the end in itself, but “a necessary condition” for the true destination, which is communion with God.

The voice of God, he said, is “Jesus Christ, the Word, and it is precisely the mystery of the Incarnation to shed light on the divine-human relationship. And it is in this light that he illuminates also the sense of the liturgy.”

“It is the irruption of divine in the human being,” he explained. “A bundle of light that comes down to us and brightens all our darkness.”

And silence is what creates the environment which makes it possible to “welcome the incarnation.”

Closing, the cardinal said that silence is “the inner climate, the inner attitude, the inner disposition that allows all this and makes the Word of the Church fruitful.”

“To a Church that is likely to become impoverished because it can close itself in parameters of purely human judgement, I humbly allow myself to point the way of silence, so that every believer, but also every celebrating community, opens to God’s initiative and accepts all grace which comes from Him.”

Edward Pentin and Paul Badde contributed to this report.

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