top of page
cpblamires

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


 

2 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

A celebrity convert

Recently I have been reading about Eve Lavalliere (1866-1929).  A website tells us that ‘For years, Eve Lavalliere was the toast of...

Why not become fire?

A friend sent me this delightful quotation from one of the Desert Fathers. Abba Lot came to Abba Joseph and said: Father, according as I...

A celebration at the Priory

The Feast of St John of the Cross was celebrated appropriately on Saturday at the OCD Priory on Boars Hill outside Oxford.  There was an...

Comments


bottom of page