From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   Of the Imitation of Christ and Contempt of all the Vanities of the World [1]   
      
   He that followeth Me, walketh not in darkness (John 8:12), saith the   
   Lord. These are the words of Christ, by which we are admonished, how   
   we ought to imitate His life and manners, if we would truly be   
   enlightened, and delivered from all blindness of heart. Let therefore   
   our chiefest endeavour be, to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ.   
   --Thomas à Kempis--Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 1   
      
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   August 13th – Bl. Otto Neururer   
      
   BL. OTTO NEURURER was born on 25 March 1882 in Piller, Austria, the   
   12th and last child of a family of peasants. In that region life has   
   always been hard. Otto's father died when he was still a young boy and   
   so responsibility for raising the children as well as for their small   
   farm and mill was left entirely to the mother. She was a devout and   
   good woman, but suffered occasional periods of depression. To some   
   extent Neururer inherited this tendency. He had brilliant intellectual   
   talents but was rather timid. By temperament he did not seem destined   
   to the life of a hero.   
      
   His formation was similar to that of many others born in the mountain   
   villages who had the opportunity to pursue higher studies. At Brixen   
   (Bressanone) he first attended the minor seminary and then entered the   
   diocesan major seminary. After completing his studies he celebrated   
   his first Mass in his native village.   
      
   Otto Neururer was a curate and teacher of religion in many places. At   
   the beginning of the century ideological and social tensions arose in   
   Tirol both in political and ecclesiastical circles. Fr Neururer, who   
   had fully understood the message or Rerum novarum, joined the   
   Christian Social Movement. This decision caused problems with his   
   higher superiors who in general adhered to more conservative views.   
   The difficulties which resulted caused Fr Neururer acute suffering but   
   they never affected his great priestly zeal.   
      
   In 1938 the Nazis occupied Tirol. Their take-over triggered the first   
   bloody persecution of the Church in the history of Austria. This   
   persecution was particularly brutal because the Nazis sensed a strong   
   ideological resistance on the part of the Tirolean faithful. Thousands   
   of people were harassed, had their civil rights curtailed, were   
   subjected to interrogation by the Gestapo and were thrown into prisons   
   and concentration camps. Many priests were condemned to death or   
   killed.   
      
   At that time Otto Neururer was parish priest in Gotzens, a village   
   near Innsbruck. Moved by a strong sense of priestly responsibility, he   
   advised a girl not to marry a divorced man who was leading a   
   notoriously dissolute life. This intervention of the parish priest   
   brought the revenge of the Nazi authorities. The man who had been   
   rejected by the girl happened to be a personal friend of the   
   Gauleiter, i.e., the highest Nazi authority in Tirol.   
      
   Neururer was arrested on the charge of "slander to the detriment of   
   German marriage" and interned first in the concentration camp of   
   Dachau and later in Buchenwald. The sadistic tortures to which he was   
   subjected caused incredible suffering, but even so he shared his   
   scarce food rations with prisoners who were even weaker than himself.   
   In the Buchenwald camp he was approached by a prisoner who asked to be   
   baptized. Perhaps he was an agent provocateur. Neururer suspected that   
   the request could be a trap, but his sense of duty did not allow him   
   to refuse. Two days later he was transferred to the much feared   
   "bunker", which in concentration camps was the place of extreme   
   punishment. There he was hanged upside down until he died on 30 May   
   1940.   
      
   Neururer was the first priest killed in a concentration camp and this   
   explains why his mortal remains were brought to a private crematorium.   
   The ashes, placed in an urn and sent to Gotzens by this crematorium,   
   are authentic, as further painstaking investigations also show. The   
   urn, in a gold mounting, will now be placed under the altar of the   
   parish church of Gotzens.   
      
      
   Bible Quote:   
   “It was his loving design, centered in Christ, to give history its   
   fulfilment by resuming everything in him, all that is in heaven, all   
   that is on earth, summed up in him”  (Eph. 1, 9-10)   
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Believe that others are better than you in the depths of their soul,   
   although outwardly you may appear better than they.   
   -- Saint Augustine of Hippo   
      
      
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   CONSECRATING THE LAST TWO HOURS   
   OF OUR LIFE TO THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN   
      
   by the late Rev. Fr. Ildefonso M. Izaguirre, O. P.   
      
   Prostrated at the feet, and humiliated by my sins, but full of   
   confidence in thee, O Mary!  I beg thee to accept the petition   
   my heart is about to make.  It is for my last moments.  Dear   
   Mother I wish to request thy protection and maternal love so   
   that in the decisive instant that thou wilt do all thy love can   
   suggest in my behalf.   
      
   To thee, O Mother of my soul, I consecrate THE LAST TWO   
   HOURS of my life.  Come to my side to receive my last   
   breath and when death has cut the thread of my days, tell   
   Jesus, presenting to Him my soul, "I LOVE IT".  That word   
   alone will be enough to procure for me the benediction of my   
   God and the happiness of seeing thee for all eternity.   
      
   I put my trust in thee, my Mother and hope it will not be in vain.   
      
   O Mary!  Pray for thy child and lead him to Jesus!   
      
   Amen.   
      
   "Abandoning the Mother is but one step   
   from abandoning the Son"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)