Here we are on August 15th. Half of this month is gone. And in that short time we, as a Church and as a nation in the world community remember some significant moments that occurred within a few short years before I was born in 1947.
On the 6th and the 9th of August seventy-six years ago the world saw a power unleased in a time of war that had never been used that way before. The use of atomic weapons on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by our country brought about the end of the World War but also brought about the beginning of a time of fear and uncertainty that has been described as "the cold war". Hundreds of thousands of of people, including mostly civilians, died in the dropping of those two bombs ... some in an instant and many later as a consequence of the fallout. You could say that a good came from this action (the end of the immediate conflict with Japan), but a continued and even greater evil continues to undermine the basic goodness of humankind.
Man's inhumanity to man has been with us from the time of Adam's sin. The countless millions who died in war and the death camps during World War II, during our own time, point to the frailty of human nature without God. And we continue to regress, to show a resolve to destroy ourselves rather than repent and reform, The examples are endless. We hold onto a culture of death and hatred and self. Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a spirit of sorrow is necessary if we are to live the peace that Christ brings to us.
Also in this first half of August the Church remembers and celebrates the heroic virtues and the selfless faith of two individuals who, only a few years before the bombings in Japan, suffered death and martyrdom in the death camps of the Nazi regime. On August 9 we honor Saint Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a Carmelite nun from Germany who fled to Holland, who was put to death in the camps because she was born a Jew. Her name was Edith Stein, and she was a intellectual and a philosopher, She gave up her Jewish heritage long before she found Christ in the Church and was baptized and entered religious life. But she joined her ancestral people in their struggle and cross and shared their cross with the Cross of Christ.
The second one honored is a Polish Franciscan priest by the name of Saint Father Maximilian Kolbe, who also died as a prisoner in the camps by offering his life in place of another prisoner who was to be put to death. His courage and sacrifice was even recognized by his captors. An interesting note about Father Kolbe is that he served at a mission before the war in, of all places, Nagasaki, Japan, ministering to the faithful there.
These were not events or people of ages past ... they are of our time, of our generation. The circumstances of these events do not bring out the best of our human nature ... but the heroic virtues and the suffering of so many give witness to something greater than what we can offer, of someone greater than ourselves. May we learn our lesson.
