No Greater Love

Mar 18

During this season of repentance, the Church asks us to reflect on the suffering and death of Jesus. His sacrifice is a model of selflessness and genuine love. He challenges all of us to a supreme sacrifice. Twenty-five years ago, the Church recognized a group of religious women who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives for their neighbors and friends during one of the darkest times in modern history.

The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth (CSFN) are an international religious community of women with deep roots in Poland. During the Second World War, a group of sisters stationed in the town of Nowogrodek (now part of Belarus) saw the suffering of the townspeople. Most of the town's Jewish population was killed or sent to concentration camps. During the summer of 1943, members of the Catholic population were arrested and sent to work camps or killed. The Sisters offered daily prayers for the people but also made known that they were willing to offer their lives in sacrifice for the prisoners. The superior of the convent, Sister Mary Stella, CSFN, told her pastor of the collective prayer of the community: “My God, if sacrifice of life is needed, accept it from us and spare those who have families.”

On July 31, 1943, the sisters were summoned by local Nazi leaders to their headquarters. The superior asked one of the sisters to stay at the convent to care for the pastor. After a night of interrogation, the ten nuns were driven outside of town. Clustered in a remote forest, they were all shot and buried in a common grave. It took over a week for the pastor and the townspeople to find out they were killed and discover their graves. On March 19, 1945, the pastor had their bodies exhumed and buried in the parish church. In March 2000, the nuns of Nowogrodek were recognized as martyrs for the faith and were beatified by Pope John Paul II.

The sacrifice these eleven sisters made can be a way we reflect on our call to “live Jesus.” The murder of these women religious reminds us of the death of other World War II martyrs like St. Maximilian Kolbe. Their communal sacrifice is comparable to the Carmelite martyrs of Compiegne who were guillotined during the French Revolution (and canonized by Pope Francis this past December). In the Salesian tradition, we think of the Visitation nuns from Madrid who were martyred during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Again and again, these women and men religious remind us that “there is no greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).” In this season of love and repentance, Christians can look at the way those who have gone before us have responded to the Gospel by “becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).”

Lent calls us to feel the pain and suffering of our sisters and brothers worldwide who suffer in so many ways. Whether it is war in Ukraine, poverty in our nation, violence in our streets, or hunger in our homes, we who follow Christ are asked to make sacrifices in the way we live our lives. Let us remember the many martyrs of our faith by following in their footsteps. We might not be called to give our lives, but we are all called to genuinely love.