Canon Rob Esdaile: Reflection at Bl Franz Jagerstatter Memorial Service

Canon Rob Esdaile gave the following reflection at the Blessed Franz Jagerstatter Memorial Service held in the Crypt of Westminster Cathedral on 9 August. Organised by Pax Christi, the day also marked the anniversary of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:

In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

Is immortal diamond.

'Immortal Diamond' seems to me the best way to characterise Bl Franz Jagerstatter - or rather to characterise Franz and Franziska, since their spirits were fused by love, by faith and by the volcanic forces of a diabolical regime's diabolical war. Without her he could not have endured. As she herself said: "When the relatives came, trying to talk him into it and arguing, I was on his side; otherwise he would have had no one at all.' She also deserves beatification, as a holy confessor of faith who endured the martyrdom of privation and ostracisation.

The Gerard Manley Hopkins poem came to mind both because of the diamond image and because of the self-deprecation that precedes it. 'This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood' - who was indeed reduced to ash by his oppressors - was, in the eyes of the authorities, including the Catholic Church's hierarchy, a man of no importance, inconsequential. His was, as his bio-pic put it 'A Hidden Life', a life lived 'In Solitary Witness' (to quote the title of Gordon Zahn's book, without which his story might have been forgotten). Archbishop Roberts of Bombay, when he introduced Franz's story into debate on conscientious objection at Vatican II, described him as 'a poor and simple man, but [he continued] we all know how often the simple and uneducated have been chosen by the Holy Spirit to bear witness to truths that were not recognised or accepted by mightier or (as the world sees it) wiser men.' Franz would have shared their estimation of his capacities. Yet to him was granted the grace to see what was hidden from his supposed elders and betters, recognising good and evil for what they were and forging a strange eloquence out of his prayer and reading and rumination as he lived the rhythm of the farm seasons. In a sense, he spoke truth unto power - although power was not listening. However, as we have heard, his main preoccupation was not with influencing anyone else. Rather it was a concern (as he might have put it) for his own immortal soul, or as we might more naturally term it a concern for being true to himself and his conscience:

'I perceive that many words will not accomplish much today … [Rather] People want to observe Christians who have taken a stand in the contemporary world; … Christians who ask primarily about the teaching of Christ and our faith, Christians who do not watch to see how their associates will respond to this or that point.'

The other aspect of a diamond, apart from the fact that it is formed in secret in the depths of the earth under extraordinary heat and pressure, is that it is typically worked into a multi-faceted jewel by its human miners, a jewel which catches the light differently depending on the angle of incidence. What then of our diamond, Franz (alongside Franziska)? How has his witness refracted the light of the Gospel over the last 80 years? His testimony will inevitably be seen differently down the decades, each generation highlighting different colours, relating to different aspects. Compare the situation in 1943 to the Cold War confrontation that succeeded it, epitomised eventually by the Berlin Wall. Consider the draft-file burnings of the Catonsville Nine during the Vietnam War. And what of the dreadful war currently being fought on our continent today?

We need to be very careful not to make easy comparisons, partly because that is the game being played by the combatants. Putin justifies his invasion in part by claiming that he is fighting 'Nazis' (enemies of the Russian Motherland being by definition 'Nazi' in Russian rhetoric, quite apart from the unacceptable views of a minority of Ukrainian nationalists). The Russian Reich cannot conceive that the 'borderlands' (the meaning of the name 'Ukraine') might not wish to be re-absorbed into a Soviet Rus - and St Radegund was, of course, itself a borderland, both before and after the Anschluss: you could walk to the frontier with Bavaria in an hour or so. The Wagner 'Meatgrinder' campaign to capture Bakhmut invites comparison with the siege of Stalingrad - and we can presume similar levels of barbarity and privation on both sides, especially through the winter months. Landmines on the one hand and cluster munitions on the other have sown seeds of destruction that will germinate for years to come.

It's easy to make connections and then choose sides in our binary worldview instead of recognising and holding fast to the sheer horror of the thing. So as we seek a wisdom for today perhaps it is most useful to absorb Bl Franz Jagerstatter's profound recognition of the malaise facing his country and continent as Nazism achieved ascendancy. That recognition was given a shape through his dream of the shiny train 'plummeting around a mountain and headed for disaster. Everyone was streaming for it. A voice told Franz: "This train is going to hell." Franz knew from that moment that there could be no compromise. One could not serve National Socialism and the Catholic faith.'

Today, there seem to be several such shiny diabolical trains ready to leave the station, or already en route: the train of rearmament which is set to increase significantly the number and power of nuclear weapons stockpiled (currently standing at 122,413 Hiroshimas in the case of the US and Russian arsenals) and which consistently turns the bread of the poor into bullets; the Ukrainian War train which has made any questioning of the logic of armed conflict virtually treasonous, while 'tactical' nuclear warheads are now explicitly stationed in Belarus (and doubtless in various NATO frontline states, too); the Climate Change train which is already accelerating past various red lights at a dizzying speed - hottest day, hottest month, hottest year, hottest decade …

Franz did not have any illusions that he could stop the train. All he could do was refuse to get on and to warn his fellow citizens. All he could do was to be true to what he had understood of the Gospel. It wasn't a question of absolute judgements (a rigid commitment to pacifism, say) but a prudential judgement regarding the situation he faced. He saw the Church being persecuted from without (with 40 priests - 4% - from Linz diocese sent to concentration camps) and undermined from within by the fear of its own leaders, and he saw his culture and his village being poisoned by hate.

So what example does this immortal diamond leave for us in our day? An invitation to 'live amid all of the darkness with clarity, insight, and conviction'; an invitation to live 'with the purest peace of mind, courage, and dedication amid the absence of peace and joy, amid the self-seeking and the hatred'; the requirement of the sort of asceticism which he practised - simple living, times of prayer, reading and reflecting, taking delight in nature, sharing in the Eucharist, carrying on with the daily round; ultimately, a daring hope that 'This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, | Is immortal diamond'; and that 'unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.'

Blessed Franz (and dear Franziska), immortal diamond that you are, pray for us.