A Carmelite hero

On this solemn Remembrance Day when our minds turn towards the terrible wars of the twentieth century, it is good to be reminded too of the heroes and heroines.  One such was

Père (Father) Jacques de Jésus, OCD, (1900 – 2 June 1945), Discalced Carmelite friar. While serving as headmaster of a boarding school run by his order, he took in several Jewish refugees to protect them from the Nazi government of occupation, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in various concentration camps.  After having suffered in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex, he died in 1945, weeks after its liberation by Allied Forces.  Pere Jacques was named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel in 1985, as a non-Jew who risked his life during the Holocaust to save Jews. French film-maker Louis Malle paid tribute to Père Jacques, who was his primary school headmaster, in the 1987 film Au revoir les enfants. The cause for his canonization by the Church was opened in 1990.

Intercessions:

Bernard - cancer

Siena- infant with severe medical issues

Rosemarie - various afflictions