Doctors Told Him to Check His Wife into a Nursing Home; Instead, He Wheeled Her Around the World.
Doctors Told Him to Check His Wife into a Nursing Home; Instead, He Wheeled Her Around the World*
Donna and Andy Fierlit
*Source: CNN.com
He came unto His own—that is, He comes as far as He can—from heaven to the Host, and down to the altar rails. Further He cannot come. The rest of the way must be ours.
Coram Sanctissimo
by Mother Mary Loyola
He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.
(John i. II.)
How strange it seems, O Lord! For You had been promised so long. You had been so ardently desired by the best and noblest of our race; so gloriously prefigured, so set forth in prophecy, as to awaken the keenest expectation and enkindle the most glowing love. How was it, then, that Your own received You not? How is it that even now You come unto Your own and are not welcomed, are not wanted, are left alone, not through the night only—that perhaps was to be expected—but through the long day hours, with Your so-called friends, and the weary and the heavy laden within a stone’s throw of Your door? Ah, Lord, the outrage and the sacrilege that mark the hatred of Your enemies are less to be wondered at, less to be deplored, than the coldness of those You call Your own. You are not given to complain. But when along the ages a meek remonstrance does break upon the silence, it is always the same—the protest wrung from You by the desertion of those You love. “Behold…my familiar friends also are departed from me…My brethren have passed by me”(Job vi). “Do you now believe? Behold…you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone” (John xvi). How Your Heart felt the desolation of abandonment; how, to speak human language, You feel it still—You made known in that cry of unrequited love, “Behold this Heart which has so loved men and is so little loved by them.”
Who would have thought that God could upbraid so tenderly, or that men could hear such reproach without being touched and won! If not to make great sacrifices for Him, if not to give up all, at least to go a few steps in order to keep Him company in His loneliness, and sympathise with Him in His sorrows—surely He might have looked for this!
Dearest Lord, one would have expected You to be in such request upon the altar; expected that there would be crowding and crushing in Your presence as in the days of Your earthly life; that we should be seen flocking to You early and late, to show our appreciation of Your love, and to pour out our troubles into Your willing ear. Where is our faith to leave You thus deserted? “Do you believe? Behold you shall be scattered every one to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”
He came unto His own—that is, He comes as far as He can—from heaven to the Host, and down to the altar rails. Further He cannot come. The rest of the way must be ours. We must meet Him there in Holy Communion, or His loving journey to us will have been in vain. He will not force our free will. But He does so want to come. Shall we disappoint Him? Oh, if our own love will not draw us to Him, at least let us have compassion on His! If we think ourselves at liberty to deprive ourselves of our communions, surely we are not free to deprive Him of His.
You long, O Lover of my soul, to come to me. Your delights are to be with me, cold, inhospitable as I am. Come, then; come, Lord Jesus, and in satisfying Your own desire, enkindle mine.
If you were to walk through the entire cemetery, gazing upon stone after stone after stone, you would find only one engraved with a name. That name, is Janusz Korczak.
The name Janusz Korczak may not ring a bell for many Americans. If you’ve heard of him at all, you probably read The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman. But even there, Korczak was one of many stories featured tangentially alongside the feature story of the Zabinskis, a husband and wife team of zookeepers in Warsaw who used their property to hide Jewish refugees, protecting them from the Warsaw Ghetto and from unspeakable concentration camps once the Germans invaded Poland in 1939. Or perhaps you read about him in The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman, which is the autobiographical account of Szpilman’s own years in the Warsaw Ghetto. In both books, Korczak is but a side story, an annotation on a central plot. You may have even read right past him amidst all the other compelling tales. But in Europe, Janusz Korczak’s story is legendary. In fact, in Europe, Janusz Korczak is as well known as Anne Frank. There is a monument to him at Yad Vashem in Israel, another in Warsaw and a memorial stone dedicated to him at the concentration camp in Treblinka, where he died.
By education, Janusz Korczak was a pediatrician in Poland at the dawn of the twentieth century. His passion for writing and for children catapulted him to fame in another area, as the author of several books for and about children, which are still available to Polish families today. In 1912, his love for children resulted in his establishing an orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw. Korczak, himself, was the director. When the Warsaw Ghetto was opened in 1940, the children were ordered to abandon their home and relocate within the heavily guarded walls of this 1.3 square mile living hell, along with 400,000 other Jews. Korczak was offered refuge on the “Arian side” of the fence, but he chose to escort his children into the Ghetto and to remain with them there.
For three years, Korczak devoted all his energy to creating some semblance of home for his children amidst the atrocities of the Ghetto. He treated each child with dignity and respect. He ran his orphanage like a democracy, with a court system run by the children themselves, teaching them always to show kindness and consideration toward others. He begged for food for the children for hours each day, if only to bring home a few crusts of bread or a bit of watery broth to share. And then in 1942, there were rumors that Ghetto residents were to be rounded up and placed on a transport to the Treblinka Extermination Camp. Shortly before the transport arrived, Korczak directed his children in a play about a little boy that dies. At the moment of death, the boy sees a radiant light, feeling immense joy and happiness for which there could be no parallel in this world. Many have claimed that Korczak chose this play because he wanted to prepare the children for what was to come. He had a great desire to protect them from fear.
In early August 1942, troops arrived and transport carriers stopped outside the Warsaw Ghetto. Along with thousands of others, the children were requested to board the trains. Again, Korczak was offered an escape via the Polish underground. Instead, witnesses watched, amazed as he and all 196 children exited the orphanage, dressed in their best clothes, each child carrying a favorite toy. There were no tears. There was no distress. Korczak, along with his children – some as young as two or three years, with the oldest being no more than thirteen – walked peacefully together, hand in hand, toward the train. They boarded together. Once SS officers slammed the doors shut, Korczak and his children were never heard from again. Later, it was confirmed that they had been executed together in the gas chambers at Treblinka, along with hundreds of thousands of others; Treblinka was second only to Auschwitz for its number of executions.
If you were to arrive at Treblinka today, you would find an awe-inspiring memorial to all those who lost their lives in that horrendous place. There is a symbolic cemetery set up to honor hundreds of thousands of Jews who were killed in the gas chambers there. In the “symbolic” cemetery, there are 17,000 stones standing erect, representing persons, families and populations of entire towns that were destroyed at the Treblinka death camp. But if you were to walk through the entire cemetery, gazing upon stone after stone after stone, you would find only one engraved with a name. That name, is Janusz Korczak.
It is puzzling to think that of 70,000 stones, only one is engraved with the name of a person. Is that perhaps because, amidst the hundreds of thousands of victims, this one man very clearly, at every turn, before and during the atrocities of WWII, sacrificed himself and his safety and security for the most vulnerable of all? Could it be because Korczak did not have his life taken from him, but rather that he laid down his life for the weakest, most defenseless of his “friends?”
We call this, this life, sans wealth, sans freedom, sans accolades, given over for the most vulnerable and ending in a gruesome death that did not have to be – this life that placed God before self and served others on His behalf – we call this sacrifice.
The Jews, our older brothers and sisters in Christ, have a tradition which states that in every generation, there will be 36 Just Men, whose shoulders bear the weight of salvation. These men, through the purity of their souls and the righteousness of their lives, provide a foundation on which rests the security and the future of the world. It is widely held that Janusz Korczak was one of those precious 36.
NOTE: Be Alarmed: I share the above story in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which has been designated for observance this entire week (4/12-4/19). Sadly, it seems that fewer and fewer Americans are being educated about the Holocaust at all. Thursday an alarming survey was released showing that a full 41 percent of American adults do not know what Auschwitz was – this figure includes 66 percent of Millennials. In fact, 22 percent of Millennials had never even heard of the Holocaust. Be vary wary – those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
We need to help our children and young adults to learn more. There are so many books to help readers to gain some understanding of that time period in history – education need not be limited to “boring” textbook accounts. Check out some of these harrowing stories, mostly nonfiction, some historical fiction, that will hopefully inspire further curiosity about this unbelievable time in human history:
The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson….(autobiographical account of the youngest Jew saved by Oscar Schindler)
Night by Elie Wiesel (about his experiences at Auschwitze and Buchenwald concentration camps with his father from 1944-1945, at the height of the Holocaust)
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Diary of a Jewish girl in hiding for two years during the German occupation of The Netherlands)
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman (true story about a couple that owned the Warsaw Zoo, and saved over 300 Jews on their property through the war)
The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945 by Wladyslaw Szpilman (inspiration for Oscar award-winning movie, The Pianist)
Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (award-winning novel and inspiration for the movie by the same name; based on detailed testimony of “Schindler’s Jews” – demonstrates beautifully the courage and cleverness of Oscar Schindler and his ability to work agains his own to save over 1,200 Jews from certain death)
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (pure fiction, but places you right in the setting of WWII – on both sides; this amazingly well-written novel follows a blind French girl and a German boy through their parallel experiences during WWII – Pulitzer prize winner with great historical accuracy; does not focus concentration camps, but rather the chaos of the war, and the evil that begat it)
Come to my heart, this dull cold heart of mine,
All irresponsive to a love divine;
What lacks it to become Thy hallowed shrine?
Lord, come and see!
Coram Sanctissimo
by Mother Mary Loyola
(John xi. 34)
Come to my heart as unto Bethl’hem’s grot,
A hovel-home that love despises not:
Can love transform it to a pleasant spot?
Lord, come and see!
Come to my heart as once to Bethany:
A brother’s grave is there, and piteously
Are tears and supplication calling Thee:
Lord, come and see!
How flocked of yore unto Thy blessed feet
The sick, the sad, Thy mercy to entreat!
I too have needs Thy pitying eye to meet:
Lord, come and see!
Come, lay Thy hand upon each leprous stain;
Come with Thy word of might the fiend to chain;
The open festering sore, the hidden pain,
Lord, come and see!
Come to my heart, this dull cold heart of mine,
All irresponsive to a love divine;
What lacks it to become Thy hallowed shrine?
Lord, come and see!
Happier by far than in the olden days
Judea’s glorious Temple—what delays
Its song and sacrifice, its prayer and praise?
Lord, come and see!
Perchance, like Temple Courts, doth sinful stain,
The world’s loud trafficking, the greed of gain
Thy Father’s house, the house of prayer profane:
Lord, come and see!
Come, Holy One, I yield myself to Thee;
E’en scourge in hand, come, Lord and Love, to me.
What change shall make me Thine, Thine utterly?
Lord, come and see!
Here, at Pelican’s Breast, we believe Friday is the perfect forum to celebrate contemporary stories of sacrifice, some big, some small, all of which which represent Christ and His perfect observance of the two greatest commandments – love of God and love of neighbor.
Traditionally, Friday is reserved as a day to reflect on Christ and His Cross. It is a day to do penance by making sacrifices of our own in honor of the Greatest Sacrifice, from which all good comes, and which is a fountain of life and source of grace. As such, at Pelican’s Breast, we believe Friday posts are the perfect forum for celebrating contemporary stories of sacrifice, some big, some small, all of which which represent Christ and His perfect observance of the two greatest commandments – love of God and love of neighbor.
Feel free to email me a link to great stories you’d like to see featured here! This week, we have three news stories to profile, as well as an inspirational first episode of a great new video series about everyday heroes, produced by the Knights of Columbus:
Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame
Ethan McMullan (19) and his sister, Alana (17)
Dash cam video shows Jose Martinez rescuing driver from being burned alive.
Everyday Hero, Joe Reali, in a feature story produced and shared by Knights of Columbus.
What should I have to say were I in the presence of the one I love best in the world; with whom I am quite at my ease; my friend par excellence; to whom my trials, difficulties, character, the secrets of my soul are known…
Coram Sanctissimo
by Mother Mary Loyola
(Cant. ii. 9.)
But meanwhile the Beloved is behind the wall. And He is there with all the sympathy for our difficulty which His perfect knowledge of it enables Him to have. “Jesus…needed not that any man should tell Him…for He knew what was in man”(john ii). He knows the weariness of praying on against apparently unanswered prayer; against the pain of physical restlessness, the labour of thought, the irksomeness of concentration, the perpetual gathering together of the forces that are playing truant in a thousand fields, recalled for a brief space only to be off again more wayward for their capture. All this He knows. And our remedy is to remember that He knows it. He Who has appointed prayer to be the channel of grace, means such prayer as we can bring Him. He does not ask impossibilities. He does not place us amid distracting work all day long and expect us to shut it out by an effort of will the moment we kneel down to pray. Nor even to shut it out by repeated efforts. He would have us turn our distractions and weariness not so much into matter for self-reproach, or humiliation even, as into a loving, trustful plea for His pity and His help. This is prayer. Lay the tired brain, the strained muscles, the aching head—lay them all down at His feet without a word, just for His eye to rest on and His Heart to help and heal.
There are times when physical lassitude, cold or heat, an importunate thought, a trial with its sting still fresh, baffles every effort to fix the mind on the subject of prayer, and concentrates the whole attention on what for the moment is all-absorbing. Times harder still to manage, when mind and heart are so absolutely vacant and callous that there is no rousing them to action. This reflection will sometimes be helpful then: What should I have to say were I in the presence of the one I love best in the world; with whom I am quite at my ease; my friend par excellence; to whom my trials, difficulties, character, the secrets of my soul are known; that one in whose concerns and welfare I take the deepest interest; whose plans and views are mine, discussed again and again together; in whose company time flies and the hour for parting comes too soon—what should I find to say?
Say it, make an effort to say it to Him Who is in the tabernacle yonder.
O Jesus, hidden God, more friendly than a brother(Prov. xviii), I believe most firmly that You are present, a few feet only from where I kneel. You are behind that little wall, listening for every word of confidence, and love, and thanksgiving, and praise. Listening when my heart is free to pour itself out to You as the brook to the river in the days of spring. Listening more tenderly when the stream is ice-bound; when I kneel before You troubled, wearied, anxious about many things—about many souls perhaps—yet dry and hard, without a word to say. Make my heart so perfectly at ease with You, O Lord, that it may be able to turn to You even in its coldness and inertness; to confide to You naturally all that most intimately concerns it; to be content with this, when discontented with all else, with self most of all—that You know all men and need not that any should give testimony of man, for You know what is in man (john ii).
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