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A few weeks ago we were in Nottingham for the arrival of the relics of St. Therese of Liseux. We met an amazing couple of people called Paul and Teresa. They were inspirational Catholics and great street evangelists who each wore prominent crucifixes. After meeting them we decided to return to wearing our own Benedictine crucifixes as we used to do.
Since doing so we have been placed in some amazing situations where the witness of the cross needed to be seen.
And then this weekend we heard two brilliant homilies in different churches in the West Midlands which both tackled the issue of the EU European Court of Human Rights ruling last week.
This ruling stated that Italy violates the educational and religious freedoms of its students by displaying crucifixes in classrooms! The court ordered Italy to remove all crucifixes from the public school class rooms as they may be disturbing to children from other religions.
The homilies we heard reminded us that we must not be cowed by such aggressive secularization. As Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi noted;
'The crucifix has always been a sign of God's love, unity and hospitality to all humanity. It is unpleasant that it is considered a sign of division, exclusion or restriction of freedom.'
One of the priests we heard at the weekend reminded us to 'wear the cross... to brandish it!'
As the atheistic New World Order continues to attempt to dismantle the Judeo-Christian culture it is worth recalling that we have been here before.
The story of Blessed Sr. Maria Restituta bears retelling;
Sr. Maria was born Helen Kafka and became an accomplished surgical nursing sister of 20 years service with the Franciscan Sisters of Charity.
She was ordered by the Nazi Gestapo to remove all the crucifixes which she had put in each room of a new wing of her hospital.
Sr. Maria Restituta refused.
She was arrested soon after leaving an operation in the operating theatre and charged with 'aiding and abetting the enemy in the betrayal of the fatherland and for plotting high treason.'
The Gestapo offered Sr. Maria her freedom if she would leave her religious order. Again she refused.
Like St. Rose of Lima before her, Sister Maria knew that 'Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven' (Catechism of the Catholic Church 618).
For her loyalty to Jesus Christ and His death on the cross for all humanity she was beheaded in 1942.
May her example inspire all Christians in our time to wear the crucifix with devotion and to refuse to remove it at the bidding of the minions of Antichrist.
