Today August 12

Today is the feast day of Blessed Karl Leisner, (1915 - 1945). He is sort of special to me because I have kind of a connection to where he was killed -- though he didn't die there. Let me explain. Karl Leisner was one of those "put your money where your mouth is" Catholics -- one who spoke the truth, in season and out of season, and you know the profoundly important question "If being a Catholic were a crime, would there be enough evidence to convict you?", well, in Karl's case, it was and there was! He was convicted of anti-Nazi propaganda and interred in Dachau concentration camp, where the majority of Catholic prisoners were (I didn't realize that). My son went there and said, imagine this: 50 high school boys laughing and cutting up the way they do, and all of a sudden they were in complete silence. "It's like, you HAVE to be reverent there." He doesn't know what to attribute it to, since he isn't all that mystical, and is not ready to say the departed spirits themselves command reverence, or if it's all in your head, or if the designers of the memorial just did a very, very good job, but it was entirely moving and kind of scary.

And the other connection I have to that is that my German professor was actually there May 6, 1945 when the camp was liberated -- he was in the American forces there, and said words can't describe the horror of the place. Everyone's heart was moved to see the wholesale slaughter of the dead and the pain inflicted on the poor surviving inmates there. Well, Karl Leisner was one of those, but he contracted tuberculosis while he was there and that's why I said it killed him, even though he died 3 months later in a different location in Germany. Interestingly, he was actually ordained in the horrendous camp by Bishop Gabriel Piquet who was also interred there (he'd already completed his seminary training, including the necessary lesser orders, apparently) and said only one Mass -- in camp -- in his entire life. I'm sure that's not what he expected when he took Holy Orders -- I imagine he intended to offer many reverent Masses, but that's how it worked out. And he still inspires young people -- there is even a whole movement of youth called Karl Leisner Jugend in Germany now. It doesn't really matter how long you live . . . but how well you love, and my goodness, he did!