The image of soon-to-be Bl. Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian beheaded by the Nazis for resisting their draft. Something of a wild child in his youth, he became serious about his faith and his life of heroic virtue prepared him to face his death bravely. In a letter to his godchild circa 1936 he wrote: I can say from my own experience how painful life often is when one lives as a halfway Christian; it is more like vegetating than living.Read all about him here (from a book on martyrs of the 20th c.). His widow is still alive, and here's an interview (of sorts) with her, interspersed with other reflections. Curtsy: Whispers, who notes this is the 2nd Nazi-era resistor B16 has beatified. The first was "the Lion of Munster," Cardinal Von Galen, an outspoken critic of the Nazis who had his house firebombed for his pains.
