July 2017 Philadelphia Chapter of Pax Christi U.S.A.
He came alive under that murky ambiguous sign; not a double cross, so to speak, but a bent cross, disabled, tampered with, horribly altered, crooked, nightmarish. A swastika.
Dare we admit it; this is the cross which (despite all frantic denials)- we too are born under? Or the one we create for ourselves?
The one we bend around, to our own crooked uses and whims and frenzies. What we make of the cross!
I would not venture that Franz saw this from the first (who does)?
Only that he saw it eventually. That cross hideously altered in form; a cross that favors deception, warmaking, unaccountability.
He saw. And he told what he saw. And then he died resisting what he saw. What happened to Franz that this came to pass?
One thinks that a burning glass was granted him for soul, in place of the soul of a good citizen, or the soul of a hell raiser (he had been that, for sure).
Something else; a third eye?
He told in his letters what happened, that momentous turnabout. ...
One doesn't want to give inordinate credit. Franz's life went this way; 1) adolescent hellion in a backwater village. 2) then in spite of all, - a totally unlikely event, a conversion.
Now the real act gets under way. A wife who loves him, clear eyed, determined to bring to life all that submerged goodness in the beloved.
So she beckons this wild eyed colt (who in the best part of his soul is waiting for this) to a maturity, a wholeness - a kiss with consequences. Three daughters are born.
He becomes, by little and by little - himself. And in that measure and for the first time, problematic to those he loved, a public authority.
We see him then, husband and father, - slowing down, newly reflective. The bride helps, the children help. Realization dawns in him; one must live for the sake of the next generation. (And for his own. For the children will be different only if we are different.)
He has a job; village sacristan.
Now of all uneventful events, this is surely the winning yawn. A sacristan in a village even God couldn't name. Couldn't the story of Franz end here, for embarrassment's sake, for ecumenism's sake? Not yet.
Toward midday, the church is empty. We picture Franz sitting there or kneeling there, an open bible in his hand, he is quite alone.
He's trying to make something of a certain text. On the one hand, he sees the words violated or ignored or trivialized all over Austria. This is astonishing; for the text seems simple and clear.
What can it mean, this business of "loving enemies, doing good to those who do ill, turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile?"
He's really not dreaming. The gospel doesn't encourage that. His brow is furrowed, he's looking for light in a midnight tunnel. He gives the words time, a long time. Days, weeks. Eventually he realizes; all this thinking is going nowhere. Then he starts to let go.
And his heart begins to breathe. Now his mind dwells on
love. Love that opens doors, open texts, means what it says, does not counsel lightly, matches words with deeds. And above all, is not fooled, but scrutinizes- the heart, the public situation.
The heart that so to speak, sees something, then makes up its mind. And follows through.
Indeed, Franz is under the gun. His world is going to very hell. In a tank. In a (newly created) bomber. In a blitzkrieg. In a racing train, as he saw later in a dream.
That train! 'All aboard!' sounding, and everybody scrambling to obey, to climb on, to go with what's going. Or as he wrote bluntly (as a voice in his dream said bluntly)- To go to hell-to hell on earth. This is the appalling thing, the unbearable thing. Christians are climbing aboard. Priests and bishops. And then the faithful, assured that the ride is free and fast and safe. What direction can he seek from such a church? (a church which only of late he had begun to take seriously.)
But will the church take him seriously?
Hitler. War. Fatherland. Gospel. Family. And coming closer; military draft; farewell wife, farewell children. Farewell gospel. Climb aboard, toss the book out the train window. For the duration, as they say. Irrelevant, out of this world (as they do not dare say; but the actions are deafening).
That train, forever steaming toward him in the darkness; All aboard for hell! hell on earth.
What to do? the burden of asking one's soul, again and again, and with little help from others - what to do ?
And what of Franzeska and what of the children? Premonition dwelt in his wife's eyes. What does it mean 'to have a martyr in the family'? Glory, glory. But glory never put bread on the table.
One day, when it was all over, a box arrived, accompanied by a document so horrible, it must all but self destruct in the mails.
'Herein contained the remains of one FRANZ JAGERSTAETTER executed at such and so hour in such and so place.' The box. And the document, impersonal, a form, the name typed in.
They buried the ashes against the outer wall of the church. And that was all. Or so it seemed. There remained only his prison letters and a few photos, of a young husband and father.
One notes the large clear eyes, the high forehead, a gaze free of ambition and servitude alike. He looks lucid, sane, able to weigh things, with no thumb on the scales, tilting this way and that; toward safety, toward delay, toward the perplexity that salvages ego and loses its soul.
Things as they are! Hitler as he is! And then the gospel whole cloth! No slogans could win him over, no command to fall in line. The priests tried, friends tried. But neither church nor state could shunt his conscience around.
He uttered a great (though modest, and generally despised) refusal.
What was the source of that refusal? One could speak of timing, of solitude, of steadfastness. Of a purity and clarity of soul no contempt could besmirch.
Indeed in time, the contempt and anger yielded to a kind of grudging admiration, slowly gathering force. Until this week and a chant Blessed Franz, pray for us. Pt 2 next issue ,,,
Franz Jagerstätter beheaded for treason
August 9, 1943