Review: Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803)

"Men who cannot ardently feel, cannot taste supreme happiness."

A bestseller in its day, Thaddeus of Warsaw is considered by some to be the first English historical novel, taking its plot from the very real Kościuszko Uprising in Poland against an invading Russia. It utilizes real events and real people, though I do have difficulty in labeling it a historical novel myself, when it takes place only about a decade before the story itself was written and published. (Kind of like someone writing a "historical novel" taking place about an event in 2014- it still seems too contemporary).

The story follows Thaddeus Sobieski, a Polish nobleman who finds himself a penniless refugee after a tragic defeat. The book opens with military-heavy scenes that, according to Devoney Looser in her biography on Jane Porter and her sister Maria (Sister Novelists), "a general had said, "No one could have described so well the horrors in Poland who had not been an eye-witness." Many couldn't believe a woman had written it."

Once Thaddeus reaches England, however, the plot becomes a little more familiar to the tropes of the time. The plot itself is complicated to explain fully, but involves a few sudden, dramatic deaths, multiple women falling in love with this "noble foreigner," misunderstandings that lead him to think he has been abandoned by a dear friend, money woes, swooning, and several unlikely connections that continue to stretch belief by the end.

It is not without its moments of enjoyment or insight, but as a modern reader -even one used to reading drier classics- it was not always easy to get through. The most difficult aspects for me, personally, are the overwrought emotion in both the prose and dialogue, and the way the plot points start stretching credulity like taffy.

Jane Porter crafted Thaddeus to be what she saw as a sort of ideal man: deeply sensitive and emotional, honorable, religious, and heroic (in the "literally running into a burning building to save children" vein of heroism).

From a social perspective, I found it interesting how Thaddeus's financial position was not much better than what you might find a young lady of time in; in fact, he actually resorts to doing the very same thing that Laura in Self-Control does: sell his paintings. He later becomes a language tutor for two wealthy young ladies, a job sent his way thanks to an older woman who has taken a motherly interest in him, Lady Tinemouth.

Speaking of Lady Tinemouth, she has one of the most dramatic backstories of anyone in the novel, as she is revealed to be the abandoned wife of a cruel man who basically left her for his mistress and then legally took their children from her, where he (and his mistress! the GALL) have raised them to hate her. Spoiler alert: we do find out later that her daughter never believed the lies against her mother, and the two are reunited on her mother's deathbed. The daughter, Lady Albina, ends up marring Thaddeus's best friend, Pembroke Somerset, who in the end turns out to be his younger half-brother. Thaddeus himself ends up marrying Pembroke's cousin, the lovely Mary Beaufort.

I'm starting to learn that that is the sort of drama you get when reading Georgian novels!

Over all, this is a pretty hefty tome of a book (it was originally published in four volumes rather than the usual three), but if you are brave enough, you can find a free copy on Project Gutenberg.

Wild fact is that apparently (according to Wikipedia) the towns of Warsaw, North Carolina and Pembroke, Kentucky get their name from this novel!

Omg but those old polish translated books are so awesome like polish is just kind of a simple but flowery poetic language almost like Latin so it's this great wealth of tears heaving bosom he did not even by this incongruence its hilarious the prose is incredible you got to try it

𝙄𝙣𝙖 𝘽𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙖 (March 1, 1912 - September 9, 1984) was born as Janina Florov-Bulhak in Kiev, Ukraine. Her date of birth or the fate of the actress is often shrouded in mystery, full of insinuations, so the birth date is probably not accurate. As the actress herself said, she was born a year later and in Georgia. It is certain that the first femme fatale of Polish cinema moved to Poland in 1920 during the Russian Civil War. She graduated from the Paris Sacré-Cœur School and the H. J. Hryniewiecki Vocal and Dramatic Courses in Warsaw. She made her debut on August 29, 1931 in the program Paradise Without Men, then in the Femina cabaret. In 1932, she made her debut in the film "Puszcza" ("The Forest") as a young heiress named Renia. She starred in such films as "Hanka,", "Jego ekscelencja subiekt" ("His Excellency, the Shop Assistant") and "Ludzie Wisły" ("People of the Vistula River"). During World War II she cooperated with the counter intelligence of the ZWK-AK. She contributed to the release of actor Franciszek Brodniewicz from the German Pawiak prison and actor Zbigniew Sawan from Auschwitz. With her partner Otto Haver, an Austrian, she was accused of Rassenschande "disgracing the race." In 1943, she hooked up with German dissident Hans Georg Pasch. They ended up in Pawiak together. There she gave birth to a son, Tadeusz (Thaddeus). On August 31, 1944, she was released from prison. For many years it was believed that she died during the Warsaw Uprising, which broke out on August 1, 1944. In fact, in Lower Saxony she married Hans, who was murdered not much after the wedding. Ina traveled with her son to the Côte d'Azur, performing in the local pubs. There she met American Lloyd Fraser Scudder, whom she married in only 1954 through the man's divorce. In 1950 she bore him a son, John. They settled in Middletown, Pennsylvania. Her husband died in 1964 of lung cancer. He was the love of her life and after his death she did not want another man. She did not talk about her career in Poland or her wartime fate. Ina died in Mechanicsburg and was buried in Middletown Cemetery. Decades later, her grandchildren Greg and Alexandria Scudder flew to Poland and Germany to discover their grandmother's true fate.

SAINT OF THE DAY (March 16)

Clement Mary Hofbauer might be called the second founder of the Redemptorists, as it was he who carried the congregation of Saint Alphonsus Liguori to the people north of the Alps.

John, the name given him at Baptism, was born on 26 December 1751 in Moravia to a poor family, the ninth of twelve children.

Although he longed to be a priest, there was no money for studies. He was apprenticed to a baker, but God guided the young man’s fortunes.

He found work in the bakery of a monastery where he was allowed to attend classes in its Latin school.

After the abbot there died, John tried the life of a hermit, but when Emperor Joseph II abolished hermitages, John again returned to Vienna.

One day, after serving Mass at the Cathedral of St. Stephen, he called a carriage for two ladies waiting there in the rain.

In their conversation, they learned that he could not pursue his priestly studies because of lack of funds.

They generously offered to support both John and his friend, Thaddeus, in their seminary studies.

The two went to Rome, where they were drawn to Saint Alphonsus’ vision of religious life and to the Redemptorists.

The two young men were ordained together in 1785.

Newly professed at age 34, Clement Mary, as he was now called, and Thaddeus were sent back to Vienna.

However, the religious difficulties there caused them to leave and continue north to Warsaw, Poland.

There, they encountered numerous German-speaking Catholics who had been left priestless by the suppression of the Jesuits.

At first, they had to live in great poverty and preach outdoor sermons. Eventually, they were given the church of St. Benno.

For the next nine years, they preached five sermons a day, two in German and three in Polish, converting many to the faith.

They were active in social work among the poor, founding an orphanage and a school for boys.

Drawing candidates to the congregation, they were able to send missionaries to Poland, Germany, and Switzerland.

All of these foundations eventually had to be abandoned because of the political and religious tensions of the times.

After 20 years of difficult work, Clement Mary himself was imprisoned and expelled from the country.

Only after another arrest was he able to reach Vienna, where he was to live and work the final 12 years of his life.

He quickly became “the Apostle of Vienna,” hearing the confessions of the rich and the poor, visiting the sick, acting as a counselor to the powerful, sharing his holiness with all in the city.

His crowning work was the establishment of a Catholic college in his beloved city.

Persecution followed Clement Mary. There were those in authority who were able to temporarily stop him from preaching.

An attempt was made at the highest levels to have him banished. However, his holiness and fame protected him and prompted the growth of the Redemptorists.

Due to his efforts, the congregation was firmly established north of the Alps by the time of his death on 15 March 1820.

He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 29 January 1888 and was canonized by Pope Pius X on 20 May 1909.

The Forgotten Sisters Who Pioneered the Historical NovelJane and Anna Maria Porter ruled Britain’s literary scene—until male imitators wrote them out of the storyThe Misses Porter (as they were sometimes called) arguably created the modern historical novel, weaving fascinating, romantic tales out of facts and events culled from history books.

If one were to pinpoint the precise moment the Porter sisters experienced the pinnacle of literary fame, it would likely be the year 1814. By then, Jane and Anna Maria Porter were in their late 30s and living together outside London. They’d published 17 books, including several international bestsellers, and gained reputations as two very different paragons of feminine talent. Jane’s looks and personality proved a tall, dark and serious contrast to Maria’s, as light, bright and sparkling. With no more than a charity-school education, the sisters had grown up nurturing each other’s ambitions, editing each other’s writing and turning themselves into household names.

The Misses Porter (as they were sometimes called) arguably created the modern historical novel, weaving fascinating, romantic tales out of facts and events culled from history books. The sisters were certainly the first to achieve critical acclaim and bestseller status with such novels, starting with Jane’s Thaddeus of Warsaw (1803), Maria’s The Hungarian Brothers (1807) and Jane’s The Scottish Chiefs (1810). Their protagonists—a mix of historical figures and invented characters—participated in bloody conflicts on past battlefields, then faced domestic hardships at home and abroad. Both sisters used compelling flourishes, and an undercurrent of clear moralism, to bring history’s heroes and despots to life.

More at the link.

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Another literary genre invented by women!

1765

Thank you so much for asking!

It was an interesting time. Not necessarily this year in particular but a few following decades for sure. Not a good time but interesting. Like in this Chinese curse.

However, 1765 was not just your ordinary year in this dying country either. Just a year before the Polish and Lithuanian aristocracy (and Ukrainian I guess, even though the country at the time was called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the territory of now Ukraine was included and aristocrats living there also had the right to vote) elected the new king (yeah, since 1573 this country had elective kings, it was a bit of a mess tbh). His name was Stanisław August Poniatowski and for once he was not a foreigner (it's like 5 foreign/6 local or 7/4 ratio depending on how to count Władysław IV Waza (Vasaätten in Swedish) and his brother Jan Kazimierz who were from foreign dynasty but from what I know were actually raised in Warsaw. Add one to local if we count Anna Jagielonka but she wasn't actually ruling I think)(Jeez, I get sidetracked a lot, am I not?). Anyway, long live the king! At least this one tried to do something about all of the shit that was going on! He failed miserably, yeah, but at least he tried. It's much more than can be said about at least a few of his predecessors.

Back to the 1765 because I'm spoiling, back then it was believed there were some chances of healing. New King just opened a new school in Warsaw but it was not your ordinary Sunday school. Szkoła Rycerska (Knightly School I guess) was a special school for aristocratic youth in the spirit of Enlightenment and raised a bunch of much-needed wise patriots instead of drunk short-sighted idiots who were governing back then. Kinda late for the party with Enlightenment, I know but anyway, it was really needed back then. Unfortunately, they were still deep in this whole "aristocracy is a pupil of an eye of the country" mindset (though this aristocracy was a bit different than what it means in the West, we have separate word for it but aristoracy is best translation I could get, because you could be dirt poor and aristocrat, just born into the right family and supposedly they were all equal. supposedly. They made up about 10% of the population though. There were three or four "classes" of them, based on the amount of money they had, I can talk about it more if someone is interested), so only blue-blooded deserved to go there. But, you know it was a step in the right direction and between the fact that the king had very little influence on anything, lots of conservatives in parliament, fucking liberum veto (this shit deserves its own, separate rant, the stupidest idea in the history of Polish law and I have a vague memory of chimney tax being a thing), and the way foreign powers were messing up, it probably was almost as good as he could get. As the name suggests, its main focus was the military and civil servant type of service. Each year supposedly 200 boys from poorer (still aristocratic though) families got stipends from the state budget to attend it. During almost 30 years of working, it was finished by 950 people. IDK what happened with these 200 stipends/year. Probably didn't work because this country was quite literally dying, burning, okay, maybe I'm overexaggerating but t'was bad.

Anyway, like any school, Szkoła Rycerska had its share of famous graduates. The most famous one definitely is Tadeusz Kościuszko. Idk if Americans tried to translate his name in any way, so here you go, certified Polish spelling (he himself translated his first name as Thaddeus). Anyway, yeah, he is The Guy who fortified Philadelphia and a bunch of other places like Saratoga, West Point, etc. during the American Revolution (I'm not all that knowledgeable when it comes to his success in this war tbh). He also used money he got from Congress as a payment/thank-you gift to free as many black slaves as he could, while having enough to give each of them a decent start in free life (education and stuff like that). His last will too was like that but it was never executed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Unfortunately, he wasn't as successful in Poland.

Btw, the highest mountain in Australia is named after him. No, to my knowledge he had never been in Australia.

Other graduates of Szkoła Rycerska also did some amazing things but their more of the local heroes, so tell me if you're interested in me telling you more about them.

Yo, I just made quite a long post about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth near the end of the 18th century and hadn't outright mentioned that it disappeared as a country in 1795. Not in a "got separated into two countries like Czechoslovakia in 1990's" but in a "not a sign on a map it ever existed"

That's an achievement.

I can and will elaborate on anything that spiked your interest, I hope it's coherent enough to be readable

I was well into answering this when my god damn ancient laptop decided to freeze and delete it all, I swear just getting angry with this thing is shortening my life more than stress of finishing high school ever could

Day 12: Warsaw

So I like this B&B/hotel: Rooftop bar, garden courtyard, self-serve espresso machine, quirky designs, Chopin concerts daily, we even have a little balcony where I’m writing today’s entry. The only thing I wish they had: air conditioning. These days happen to be the warmest days on the trip-in the mid 80s. I don’t do well sleeping warm, even with a fan. Oh well. I’m sure this would be an even better place in the shoulder seasons.

Hit the snooze this morning and eventually made it to breakfast. After a slower breakfast with a few coffees, we made our way to the Chopin Museum a few minutes walk from here.

The museum has plenty of memorabilia and Chopin’s last piano. There are listening stations and other interactive exhibits.

We spent about an hour there before walking up Nowy Swiat-New World street. This is the traditional Royal route to the old town and the palace.

We stopped at a Costa Coffee for water and coffee. While Rose was sitting outside waiting, I walked into Holy Cross Church. This is where Chopin’s heart is buried in one of the pillars. Now I’ve see all his pieces-I’ve been to his grave in Paris. I walked over to a side altar and lit a candle at the request of a friend. I was wondering when I would cry on this trip-well it was there. The side altar had an offertory box to St. Jude Thaddeus and attached to the altar rail were dozens of small brass plaques thanking St. Jude for answered prayers. I’m not sure if it was thoughts of Dad that got me choked up or the sight of those plaques. Anyway, I went with it for a minute or two and then went outside and back across the street where Rose was sitting with our coffees.

After our coffees we continued our walk. As typical of me, I popped into this church and that church. We made our way to the Rynek and walked over to the Curie Museum. This small museum is located in the house that Marie Skłodowska-Curie was born in. I picked up a shirt for Xavier since his request of a piece of her laboratory wouldn’t work. Lol (That’s in Paris and radioactive)

We needed to end and as it started to sprinkle we just picked a place to eat. Rose is still working on regaining their appetite.

After a long lunch we went back into the old town, where I went into the basilica of St. John the Baptist. This a famous Warsaw church which was mostly destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising and rebuilt. Many famous Poles are buried in the crypt: the last king of Poland, author Sienkiewicz, and musician and President, Paderewski.

We then grabbed scooters back to the hotel to rest.

About an hour or so later, I headed out to see a bit more of the non-touristy places in the old town. Eventually I walked over to the Warsaw Uprising Museum and it’s monument depicting citizens rising out of the sewers to fight the Nazis. A short distance from there is a park that contained markers in the ground showing where the wall of the Warsaw Ghetto stood.

Then as the overcast skies started spitting, I grabbed a scooter back to the hotel. Even when you are on a scooter (trying to be careful of pedestrians and weaving around) try to look up and see what is on the buildings. Case in point: It seems Joseph Conrad and Karol Szymanowski once lived in the same building. Or right across from each other.

A Chopin (and others-as the poster says) concert tonight next door. After that Rose and I will get something to eat.

Tomorrow we take a day trip to Toruń.

Do zo.

( via / via )

"Thaddeus of Warsaw deserves a place among the best novels of the Romantic era...and its narrative of a Polish war refugee in London has gained new resonance in our own era."

    romance of those years that seemed at the time letdown     from our heroic

times when youth startled the world with a new flash & thunder

"...his first feature, Stranger Than Paradise (1984)...he described as 'a neo-realistic black comedy in the style of an imaginary Eastern European director obsessed with Ozu and The Honeymooners'."

"serafino uvacceo" --Marianne Moore

Each pin moves in a circle.

Tadeusz Kościuszko, 1976, Poland, 100 Złotych, Silver (.625), Mintage: 100.148, Proof, 16.5 g, 32 mm

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (English: Andrew Thaddeus Bonaventure Kosciuszko;4 or 12 February 1746 – 15 October 1817) was a Polish military engineer, statesman, and military leader who became a national hero in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, France and the United States. He fought in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's struggles against Russia and Prussia, and on the US side in the American Revolutionary War. As Supreme Commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, he led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising.

Kościuszko was born in February 1746, in a manor house on the Mereczowszczyzna estate in Brest Litovsk Voivodeship, then Grand Duchy of Lithuania, a part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Ivatsevichy District of Belarus). At age 20, he graduated from the Corps of Cadets in Warsaw, Poland. After the start of the civil war in 1768, Kościuszko moved to France in 1769 to study. He returned to the Commonwealth in 1774, two years after the First Partition, and was a tutor in Józef Sylwester Sosnowski's household. In 1776, Kościuszko moved to North America, where he took part in the American Revolutionary War as a colonel in the Continental Army. An accomplished military architect, he designed and oversaw the construction of state-of-the-art fortifications, including those at West Point, New York. In 1783, in recognition of his services, the Continental Congress promoted him to brigadier general.

Upon returning to Poland in 1784, Kościuszko was commissioned as a major general in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Army in 1789. After the Polish–Russian War of 1792 resulted in the Commonwealth's Second Partition, he commanded an uprising against the Russian Empire in March 1794 until he was captured at the Battle of Maciejowice in October 1794. The defeat of the Kościuszko Uprising that November led to Poland's Third Partition in 1795, which ended the Commonwealth. In 1796, following the death of Tsaritsa Catherine II, Kościuszko was pardoned by her successor, Tsar Paul I, and he emigrated to the United States. A close friend of Thomas Jefferson, with whom he shared ideals of human rights, Kościuszko wrote a will in 1798, dedicating his U.S. assets to the education and freedom of the U.S. slaves. Kościuszko eventually returned to Europe and lived in Switzerland until his death in 1817. The execution of his testament later proved difficult, and the funds were never used for the purpose Kościuszko intended.

14th August >> Saint of the Day for Roman Catholics: Saint Maximilian M Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Memorial)

St Maximilian M. Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Memorial)

Maximilian Kolbe was born Rajmund on 8 January 1894 in Zduńska Wola, which was at that time part of the Russian Empire. Rajmund was the second son of Julius Kolbe and Maria Dabrowska. His father was an ethnic German and his mother of Polish origin. He had four brothers, two of whom died very young. His parents moved to Pabianice where they worked first as weavers. Later his mother worked as a midwife (often without charge) and ran a grocery and household goods shop in part of her rented house. Julius Kolbe worked at weaving mills and also grew vegetables on a rented allotment. In 1914 he joined Józef Piłsudski’s Polish Legions fighting for Poland’s independence from Russia and was captured. Regarded as a Russian subject, he was hanged as a traitor in 1914, aged forty-three.

In 1907 Rajmund and his elder brother Francis decided to join the Conventual Franciscans. They illegally crossed the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and joined a Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów. In 1910 Kolbe entered the novitiate. He professed his first vows in 1911.

In 1912 he was sent to Kraków and then on to Rome where he took final vows in 1914, adopting the names Maximilian Maria, to show his veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Rome he studied philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics. He took a great interest in astrophysics and the prospect of space flight and the military. While in Rome he designed an airplane-like spacecraft, similar in concept to the eventual space shuttle, and tried to patent it. In 1918 he was ordained a priest. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a doctorate in theology in 1919 at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure. During his time as a student, he witnessed demonstrations by Freemasons against Popes Pius X and Benedict XV. This inspired him to organize the Militia Immaculatae (Army of Mary) to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary.

In 1919 he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and returned to a newly independent Poland.

Here his main work was teaching Church history in a seminary. Another attack of tuberculosis was followed by the re-siting of his printing presses at Niepokalanow, near Warsaw. Here Maximilian founded a Franciscan community which combined prayer, cheerfulness and simplicity of life with modern technology, as well as a seminary, a radio station and several other organisations and publications. He was also very active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. His movement had its own magazine, Militia Immaculatae, in which he particularly condemned Freemasonry, Communism, Zionism, Capitalism and Imperialism. Not long after, the presses were moved to Grodno, circulation increased to 45,000 and new machinery was installed.

Between 1930 and 1936 he went on a series of missions to Japan, where he founded a friary on the outskirts of Nagasaki, a Japanese newspaper and a seminary. Because, against local advice, the friary was not built on the ‘propitious’ side of the mountain it was spared the devastation caused by the atomic bomb in 1945. After founding another community at Nagasaki in Japan, Maximilian was recalled in 1936 as superior of Niepokalanow, which grew to number 762 friars.

When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Kolbe, realising that his monastery would be taken over, sent most of the friars home, warning them not to join the underground resistance.

During the Second World War the friary provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 3,000 Poles and 1,500 Jews. Maximilian was also active as a radio amateur, attacking Nazi activities through his reports. For some time his newspapers continued publication, taking a patriotic, independent line, critical of the Third Reich. Kolbe, who had refused German citizenship, was finally arrested on 17 February 1941 as a journalist, publisher and ‘intellectual’. Gestapo officers were shown round the whole friary and were astonished at the small amount of food prepared for the friars. He was imprisoned in the Pawiak prison and on 25 May was transferred to Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670. In the camp the heavy work of moving loads of heavy logs at double speed was enforced by kicks and lashes. Maximilian also had to remove the bodies of those who died of torture. At the same time, he continued his priestly ministry, hearing confessions in unlikely places and smuggling in bread and wine to celebrate the Eucharist. He was noted for his sympathy and compassion towards those even more unfortunate than himself.

In July 1941 a prisoner from Kolbe’s barracks vanished, prompting the deputy camp commander to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in the notorious Block 13 as punishment for his escape. (In fact, he was found later to have drowned – deliberately? – in the camp latrine.)

When one of those selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out in distress at having been chosen, Maximilian volunteered to take his place. He stepped forward, saying: “I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man. I am old; he has a wife and children.” During the days in the death chamber of Cell 18, he led his companions in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. He was finally put to death on 14 August 1941 with an injection of carbolic acid.

He was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and canonized on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, a former archbishop of Kracov, the diocese where Auschwitz was located. Among those present was Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose place Kolbe had taken.

Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II also declared him the “Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century”

Kolbe is one of ten 20th-century martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London.

Franciszek Gajowniczek

He died on March 13, 1995, at Brzeg in Poland, 95 years old – and 53 years after Kolbe had saved him. But he was never to forget the ragged monk. After his release from Auschwitz, Gajowniczek spent the next five decades paying homage to Father Kolbe, honoring the man who died on his behalf.

In December 1994, the 94-year-old Pole visited St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church of Houston. His translator on that trip, Chaplain Thaddeus Horbowy, said: "He told me that as long as he . . . has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe."

St Clement Mary Hofbauer C.Ss.R.(1751-1820) Hermit, Priest, Religious, Co-Founder of the Redemptorist Order, Apostle of Vienna. St Clement was born on 26 December 1751 at Tasswitz, Moravia (in the modern Czech Republic) as John Dvorák and he died on 15 March 1820 at Vienna, Austria of natural causes. He was Canonised on 20 May 1909 by Pope Pius X. The ninth child of a butcher who changed the family name from the Moravian Dvorák to the Germanic Hofbauer. His father died when Clement was six years old. The young man felt a call to the priesthood, but his family was too poor to afford his education. Apprentice and journeyman baker at Premonstratensian monastery at Bruck, Germany. Hermit. When hermitages were abolished by Emperor Joseph II, Clement worked as a baker in Vienna, Austria. Hermit in Italy with Peter Kunzmann, taking the name Clement. Made three pilgrimages to Rome. During the third, he joined the Redemptorists at San Giuliano, adding the name Marie. He met some sponsors following a Mass, and they agreed to pay for his education. Studied at the University of Vienna, and at Rome. Ordained in 1785, and assigned to Vienna. Missionary to Warsaw, Poland with several companions from 1786 to 1808, working with the poor, building schools and orphanages; the brothers preached five sermons a day. Spiritual teacher of Venerable Joseph Passerat. With Father Thaddeus Hubl, he introduced the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to Poland. From there he sent Redemptorist missionaries to Germany and Switzerland. Clement and his companions were imprisoned in 1808 when Napoleon suppressed religious orders, then expelled to Austria. Noted preacher and spiritual director in Vienna. Chaplain and spiritual director of an Ursuline convent. Founded a Catholic college in Vienna. Worked with young men, and helped revitalize German religious life. Worked against the establishment of a German national Church. Worked against Josephinism which sought secular control of the Church and clergy. https://www.instagram.com/p/CbIDLq9rO6L/?utm_medium=tumblr

Image taken from page 69 of '[Thaddeus of Warsaw ... A new and illustrated edition revised, etc.]'

Image taken from: Title: "[Thaddeus of Warsaw ... A new and illustrated edition revised, etc.]" Author: Porter, Jane Shelfmark: "British Library HMNTS 12619.i.10." Page: 69 Place of Publishing: London Date of Publishing: 1880 Publisher: Routledge & Sons Edition: [Another edition.] Issuance: monographic Identifier: 002962536 Explore: Find this item in the British Library catalogue, 'Explore'. Download the PDF for this book (volume: 0) Image found on book scan 69 (NB not necessarily a page number) Download the OCR-derived text for this volume: (plain text) or (json) Click here to see all the illustrations in this book and click here to browse other illustrations published in books in the same year. Order a higher quality version from here. from BLPromptBot https://ift.tt/2GmQRif

Thaddeus Hassell, Jr. obituary

Thaddeus Hassell, Jr. obituary

Thaddeus Warsaw Hassell, Jr. age 77 of Murfreesboro died Wednesday January 9, 2019, at Alvin C. York Medical Center. He was a native of Chattanooga, TN and was preceded in death by his wife, Anne Hassell and his parents Thaddeus Warsaw Hassell, Sr. and Mary Cole Hassell. He was a veteran of the United States Navy.

Survived by daughter; Melissa Douglas and husband Lee of Murfreesboro, sons, Brant…

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14th August >> Daily Reflection on the life of Saint Maximilian M Kolbe for Roman Catholics.

St Maximilian M. Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Memorial) Maximilian Kolbe was born Rajmund on 8 January 1894 in Zduńska Wola, which was at that time part of the Russian Empire. Rajmund was the second son of Julius Kolbe and Maria Dabrowska. His father was an ethnic German and his mother of Polish origin. He had four brothers, two of whom died very young. His parents moved to Pabianice where they worked first as weavers. Later his mother worked as a midwife (often without charge) and ran a grocery and household goods shop in part of her rented house. Julius Kolbe worked at weaving mills and also grew vegetables on a rented allotment. In 1914 he joined Józef Piłsudski’s Polish Legions fighting for Poland’s independence from Russia and was captured. Regarded as a Russian subject, he was hanged as a traitor in 1914, aged forty-three. In 1907 Rajmund and his elder brother Francis decided to join the Conventual Franciscans. They illegally crossed the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and joined a Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów. In 1910 Kolbe entered the novitiate. He professed his first vows in 1911. In 1912 he was sent to Kraków and then on to Rome where he took final vows in 1914, adopting the names Maximilian Maria, to show his veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In Rome he studied philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics. He took a great interest in astrophysics and the prospect of space flight and the military. While in Rome he designed an airplane-like spacecraft, similar in concept to the eventual space shuttle, and tried to patent it. In 1918 he was ordained a priest. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a doctorate in theology in 1919 at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure. During his time as a student, he witnessed demonstrations by Freemasons against Popes Pius X and Benedict XV. This inspired him to organize the Militia Immaculatae (Army of Mary) to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. In 1919 he was diagnosed as having tuberculosis and returned to a newly independent Poland. Here his main work was teaching Church history in a seminary. Another attack of tuberculosis was followed by the re-siting of his printing presses at Niepokalanow, near Warsaw. Here Maximilian founded a Franciscan community which combined prayer, cheerfulness and simplicity of life with modern technology, as well as a seminary, a radio station and several other organisations and publications. He was also very active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. His movement had its own magazine, Militia Immaculatae, in which he particularly condemned Freemasonry, Communism, Zionism, Capitalism and Imperialism. Not long after, the presses were moved to Grodno, circulation increased to 45,000 and new machinery was installed. Between 1930 and 1936 he went on a series of missions to Japan, where he founded a friary on the outskirts of Nagasaki, a Japanese newspaper and a seminary. Because, against local advice, the friary was not built on the ‘propitious’ side of the mountain it was spared the devastation caused by the atomic bomb in 1945. After founding another community at Nagasaki in Japan, Maximilian was recalled in 1936 as superior of Niepokalanow, which grew to number 762 friars. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Kolbe, realising that his monastery would be taken over, sent most of the friars home, warning them not to join the underground resistance. During the Second World War the friary provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 3,000 Poles and 1,500 Jews. Maximilian was also active as a radio amateur, attacking Nazi activities through his reports. For some time his newspapers continued publication, taking a patriotic, independent line, critical of the Third Reich. Kolbe, who had refused German citizenship, was finally arrested on 17 February 1941 as a journalist, publisher and ‘intellectual’. Gestapo officers were shown round the whole friary and were astonished at the small amount of food prepared for the friars. He was imprisoned in the Pawiak prison and on 25 May was transferred to Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670. In the camp the heavy work of moving loads of heavy logs at double speed was enforced by kicks and lashes. Maximilian also had to remove the bodies of those who died of torture. At the same time, he continued his priestly ministry, hearing confessions in unlikely places and smuggling in bread and wine to celebrate the Eucharist. He was noted for his sympathy and compassion towards those even more unfortunate than himself. In July 1941 a prisoner from Kolbe’s barracks vanished, prompting the deputy camp commander to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in the notorious Block 13 as punishment for his escape. (In fact, he was found later to have drowned – deliberately? – in the camp latrine.) When one of those selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out in distress at having been chosen, Maximilian volunteered to take his place. He stepped forward, saying: “I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man. I am old; he has a wife and children.” During the days in the death chamber of Cell 18, he led his companions in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. He was finally put to death on 14 August 1941 with an injection of carbolic acid. He was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and canonized on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, a former archbishop of Kracov, the diocese where Auschwitz was located. Among those present was Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man whose place Kolbe had taken. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II also declared him the “Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century” Kolbe is one of ten 20th-century martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London. Franciszek Gajowniczek He died on March 13, 1995, at Brzeg in Poland, 95 years old – and 53 years after Kolbe had saved him. But he was never to forget the ragged monk. After his release from Auschwitz, Gajowniczek spent the next five decades paying homage to Father Kolbe, honoring the man who died on his behalf. In December 1994, the 94-year-old Pole visited St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church of Houston. His translator on that trip, Chaplain Thaddeus Horbowy, said: "He told me that as long as he . . . has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe."