22 April 2021

'You do not leave a child at a time like this' (Janusz Korczak). Sunday Reflections, 4th Sunday of Easter, Year B

 

The Good Shepherd
Early Italian Christian Painter [Web Gallery of Art]

Readings (Jerusalem Bible: Australia, England & Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)

Readings (New American Bible: Philippines, USA)

Gospel  John 19:11-18  (English Standard Version, Anglicised)

Jesus said:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

 

Léachtaí i nGaeilge


Janusz Korczak
(22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942)

 

When St John Paul II canonised St Maximilian Kolbe OFMConv on 10 October 1982 he cited Janusz Korczak, a Jewish writer and teacher, who went to his death with a group of orphans in his charge although he had been offered the chance to be spared. He was also a paediatrician.

There were similarities between the sacrifice of of Fr Kolbe and Dr Korczak, both Polish. Fr Kolbe offered his life in exchange for that of Franciszek Gajowniczek,  a young Polish soldier interned in Auschwitz who was to be executed with nine others chosen at random because three of their companions had escaped. The Franciscan friar heard the young soldier cry 'My wife and my children'. His offer was accepted and he and the other nine were put in a cell and left without food or water. After two weeks the Franciscan priest was the only one still alive and was given a lethal injection on 14 August 1941.

Almost a year later Janusz Korczak was to die in Treblinka extermination camp along with nearly 200 Jewish orphans who had been living in the orphanage that he had set up in Warsaw in 1911-12. However, when the Nazis took over Warsaw they forced the orphanage to move to the Ghetto that they created in a district of the Polish capital in late 1940.

German soldiers came on 5 or 6 August 1942 to collect the orphans and about 12 staff members to take them to Treblinka. Dr Korczak had already turned down offers of sanctuary for himself before this and turned down an offer at this point.


A witness described the sceneJanusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar.


At the point of departure for Treblinka an SS officer recognised Dr Korczak as the author of a book that was a favourite of his children and offered him a means of escape. Once again this remarkable man turned down this offer and went with the children to the camp where their lives were soon to end in the gas chambers.


Janusz Korczak could not save the lives of the children under his care but he made sure that they left the orphanage with dignity, wearing their best clothes and each bringing an item that was special to him or her. He chose not to leave them but to die with them.


St Maximilan Kolbe chose to give his life for someone he did not know because that man had a family and he hadn't.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).


Cell where St Maximilian Kolbe died, 14 August 1941
[Wikipedia, source of photo]

[The hired hand] flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep (John 10:13-15).

Monument to Janusz Korczak, Warsaw
[Wikipedia, source of photo]

Three years ago on this Sunday I told the story of Janusz Korczak in my homily at a Mass in a parish in Dublin. It was a few weeks before a referendum in the Republic of Ireland to change an article in the Constitution so that abortion on demand could be legalised. I hoped that the congregation would make the connection between the sacrifice of Janusz Korczak and what we would be voting on. Some certainly did, because they told me so after Mass. Rightly or wrongly, I had decided to speak on the matter of the right to life of the unborn child in the form of a 'parable', even though this story really happened. But I sometimes ask myself if during those days - I addressed the matter similarly in other Sunday homilies at that time - I was somewhat cowardly.

Sadly, two-thirds of those who voted wanted change. The legislation that followed, allowing for abortion on demand up to 12 weeks, but with restrictions thereafter, came into effect on the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, 1 January 2019. That year 6,666 human beings were legally aborted in the Republic of Ireland. There are no figures yet for 2020. 

The nearly 200 Jewish orphans, their nurses and Janusz Korczak were also 'legally' killed as were St Maximilain Kolbe and his nine companions.

Surrexit Pastor Bonus

Setting by Orlando di Lasso

Sung by Vox AngelorumChoir, MBK, Jakarta

At St Paul’s Within theWalls, Rome


Antiphona ad communionem

Communion Antiphon

 

Surrexit Pastor Bonus, 

The Good Shepherd has risen,

qui animam suam posuit pro ovibus suis,

who laid down his life for his sheep

et pro grege suo mori dignatus est, alleluia.


Extraordinary Form of the Mass

Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) 

Third Sunday after Easter 

The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 4-25-2021 if necessary).

Epistle: 1 Peter 2:11-19.  GospelJohn 16:16-22.

 

Authentic Beauty

Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.

Pope Benedict XVI meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel, 21 November 2009.

Never Again: A Song to Remember The Holocaust
Words and music by Stephen Melzack

The words ‘B’YomHaShoah yikatevun’ in the song mean ‘On Holocaust Day it is Written’

In memory of Dr Janusz Korczak, the twelve nurses from his orphanage and the nearly 200 orphans murdered in Treblinka for the sole reason that, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they were Jewish.



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