Quote
“Life is often wearisome. Work is tiring. Looking for work is exhausting. But what is most burdensome in life is a lack of love.”
| Pope Francis, speaking Oct. 26 to an estimated 100,000 people in St. Peter’s Square for a Year of Faith celebration of family life. The pope emphasized the importance of the sacrament of marriage and urged couples to embrace it as a lifelong journey. (Catholic News Service)
Profile
Jersula Manaba
Youth minister, St. Damien of Molokai Church, Kaunakakai
- Favorite holiday: Christmas
- Plate lunch: Korean chicken, tossed salad, hapa rice
- Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer… (I) taught all of my kids by the time they were 2 years old. They were all able to recite it.
- Most memorable priest: Father Jim Orsini, who baptized all of my children on Molokai and Oahu.
- PC or Mac: Mac – laptop, iPhone, iPad
- Breakfast this morning: Shakeology – vanilla flavor with peanut butter, banana and almond milk
- Tattoo: No, birthmarks only
- Gave up for Lent: Beef and pork more than 10 years ago; never went back.
Saints under 35
Joyfully accepting death
In the thick of World War II, three Catholic priests and their Lutheran counterpart were guillotined by the Nazi regime for “treasonous” activities. Nearly 70 years later, the three Catholics — Fathers Johannes Prassek, Eduard Muller and Hermann Lange — were beatified in their native Germany in a ceremony that also recognized Lutheran Father Karl Friedrich Stellbrink.
The religious’ wartime behavior of distributing anti-Nazi material, including sermons by the bishop of Munster, earned special attention from Adolph Hitler and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Both called for the priests’ deaths.
The Catholics were in their early 30s when they were killed – Father Prassek and Father Muller were 32, and Father Lange was 31.
When the priests were sentenced in a Hamburg prison in 1943, they accepted their fate with joy. Letters to their families and dioceses written before they were guillotined clearly reflect their peace: Father Prassek’s read, in part, “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.” (Catholic News Agency, catholicreview.org)
