White Rose Martyrs and Lent, 

Several months ago I offered to give a vocation talk to the Life Teen group at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Alice.  While I was asked to present my vocation story, I also wanted to remind the young women of the group (Brother Martin, SOLT spoke with the young men) how much the world needed them—their faith and their enthusiasm. 

So I shared that world through the lens of a number of profound experiences I have had as a religious sister.  I did so because “the world” is not an abstraction or “out there” but very close to home and that world is a suffering one.  Thus, these young women and many women like them are truly needed to help heal this world.

However, there is more to this story.  I also shared that my heroes were faith-filled young people like themselves.  And until recently all I knew of the group called The White Rose was courage and martyrdom during the dark days of the Nazi takeover in Germany.

“I had discovered this group while I was researching the life of St. Edith Stein.  And these young people did what young people do best—they rebelled.” I am fairly sure the young women were at least a bit surprised with my comment. Perhaps they were even more surprised when I added, “If I should be called to give my life, I hope I will do so with the same courage they had.”

Who and what was the White Rose Society?  This underground group was started at the University of Munich with some student members and their friends, led by one of its professors.  They published and distributed leaflets along with public graffiti to wage a campaign against the Nazi government.

Their aim was to encourage opposition. However, the group’s efforts ended when Sophie and Hans Scholl along with Christoph Probst were the first members to be arrested. More arrests occurred with that of Willie Graf, Professor Kurt Huber and Alexander Schmorell. 

All were tried, found guilty of treason and executed.   Other members were arrested and all but one was sent to prison. Schmorell was later declared a saint as a New Martyr in the Orthodox Church. 

While the topic of resistance has been a headliner and a very hot topic during the recent weeks, it has been and will continue to be a spiritual reality beginning as far back the Desert Mothers and Fathers in the early Church.  It is resistance that strengthens our bodies’ muscles as well as our spiritual ones. The members of the White Rose became spiritual athletes in doing what they could where they were.  Success for them, if one could call it that, came later with a flurry of books and several movies. Perhaps a better word might be recognition.

Student life went on as if these young people had never existed much less died for what they believed in.  While I did not know their names at first, they were still my heroes. They are my heroes not just because they were martyrs; they are heroes because they knew what was important in life.  Simply, they knew how to live.

For those of us who are concerned of the lack of heroes for the young of today, maybe we need to be reminded that the young can also be heroes. So take some time this Lent to pray for one hero and saint in the making.  Imagine what might happen if every reader did the same.

(St. Alexander Schmorell drawing by Angelika Knoop-Probst, Nicoasc (talk · contribs) (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).