St. Joseph Our Liberator

May is the month of Our Blessed Mother. As the blossoms of spring push through the winter of our life, our hearts and our prayers instinctively turn toward the woman who is the Mother of God and our Mother.
           
The first day of Our Lady’s month is a feast of her most chaste spouse, her protector and the protector of the Child Jesus—St. Joseph, honored as the Worker. One could rightly argue that his greatest work was not accomplished in his carpenter shop. Rather, his greatest endeavor was watching over, protecting and loving his Divine Foster Son and the Woman who brought God into the world as the Word Made Flesh. It is not surprising at all that Blessed Pius IX proclaimed St. Joseph Patron of the Universal Church. The Church, we believe, is the Body of Christ on earth. It follows that as St. Joseph protected and guided Jesus through His Infancy and life, so, too, he would protect and guide the Church, Christ’s Body, by his powerful intercession from age to age.
           
Just this week, on May 1, a film produced by the Knights of Columbus was aired in select theaters. The film is entitled, “Our Liberator: St. Joseph and the Priests of Dachau.” It tells the story of the great faith and brutal suffering of Catholic priests who were imprisoned in the first Nazi concentration camp established in Dachau in 1933. It became a penal labor camp for over 30 thousand prisoners, of whom 3 thousand were priests. The largest national group were 1,773 priests from Poland.  It relates their tremendous confidence in the intercession and protection of St. Joseph
           
In Dachau, priests who had disabilities were sent to gas chambers and then to crematoriums. Others were worked to death, forced to do exhausting manual labor on a starvation diet. They were humiliated, beaten, and tortured by the Nazi guards. Some were subjected to unethical and abusive pseudo-medical experiments, often infected on purpose with malaria to test new treatments being developed for German soldiers.
           
In January of 1941, for propaganda purposes that claimed humane treatment for priests, a chapel was established in Dachau for the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass. Only a few priests were allowed to celebrate Mass, and the Polish priests were  excluded. The German priests who were imprisoned were allowed to offer Mass. Having access to hosts and wine, they shared them with their Polish brothers so that they could celebrate Mass secretly in the barracks. The Holy Eucharist was administered secretly to the sick and dying in the camp hospital at great risk. They all drew strength and consolation from Jesus’ Real Presence in the Sacrament of the Altar.
           
In the midst of all this horror and suffering, the priests did not lose faith. They entrusted themselves to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to St. Joseph as their special patron.
           
Their confidence in and prayer to St. Joseph began on December 8, 1940 when a group of Polish priests were transferred to Dachau from the camp of Sachsenhausen; on that very day they began to pray to St. Joseph, who had protected the Infant Jesus from death. They prayed that he would do the same for them.  In Dachau, they formed a committee to organize secret religious devotions and sermons about St. Joseph. This continued through April of 1945.
           
That month they began to sense that the tide of the war was turning against the Nazis. They feared, however, that the Nazi authorities would never allow them to leave the camp alive. On April 14 they began a novena to St. Joseph for their liberation. On April 22 of 1945, the last day of the novena, about 800 priests with great devotion and faith consecrated themselves to St. Joseph. The priests promised that if they survived, they would spread devotion to St. Joseph and make a pilgrimage to his shrine in Kalisz, Poland.
           
The priests did not know that, in fact on the very day that they began the novena to St. Joseph, there was an order issued by SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler that the priests along with the other prisoners of the camp were to be exterminated on April 29 at 9:00pm.
           
On April 29, only 4 hours before the order was carried out, a handful of invading allied soldiers entered the camp. Against all odds, the Allies overpowered the Nazi soldiers and the SS Wiking Division, who were charged with the extermination of the prisoners.  The 32 thousand who were imprisoned were liberated, including 856 Catholic priests. The priests went immediately to the chapel and sang the “Te Deum” in thanksgiving for their liberation through the intercession of St. Joseph. In 1948 they came on pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s shrine in Kalisz and fulfilled their promise. Today nearby the shrine there is a Chapel of Martyrdom and Gratitude and the Institute of Family Studies established.
           
It is a reminder to us that no matter how dark or dire the world may seem, prayer is what changes all for the better. It saves human lives and especially souls. St. Joseph is still our liberator, and protector of the Church and of our families. Why not go to him in all our needs for his protection and help?
           
In this month dedicated to Our Blessed Mother, we see St. Joseph at her side as we ask for her protection and intercession.  She is the Mother of the Church and he is the Patron of the Church and often the Liberator.  If that is so, then we have nothing to fear!

Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh