Text: Pax Christi CEO at Franz Jagerstatter Annual Service

Andrew Jackson at Franz Jägerstätter 2024 Annual Service - Pimlico

Andrew Jackson, CEO of Pax Christi UK gave the following reflection at the Franz Jägerstätter Annual Service held at Holy Apostles church, Pimlico, central London, on Friday, 9 August, 2024, Nagasaki Day.

It is 60 years this year since the publication of Gordon Zahn's book 'In Solitary Witness', the first full biography of Franz Jägerstätter and the book which, through a review by Thomas Merton in 1965, brought Blessed Franz to the attention of Pax Christi. And the rest as they say is history.

My own introduction to Franz Jägerstätter came through my adult children. As they are wont to do even now, they once said to me 'Dad there is a film you must see. You'll love it - it's about an Austrian farmer who refuses to fight for the Nazis and is executed as a result. The film of,course, was 'A Hidden Life'. I know that it is art and it is cinema and may not be entirely historically accurate but I did indeed 'love' it - finding it deeply moving and inspiring.

Imagine my delight then in arriving at Pax Christi and finding what has best been described to me as our 'particular devotion' to Blessed Franz - this remarkable man.

In what I wanted to think was an act of symmetry - the book is exactly as old as I am - I read In Solitary Witness earlier this year.

Those who have read it will know that it isn't the most straightforward of reads and has its own unique style. Blessed Franz is often referred to as the Peasant - which is jarring to modern ears - but there is no doubting the sense throughout that this man's story needs to be told and to be heard.

At the outset says, Gordon Zahn says this:

'The facts of Franz Jägerstätter's life may be stated briefly, but how does one begin to tell his whole story? What was there about this man that, alone amongst his friends and neighbours, perhaps alone among his Austrian coreligionists, made it possible for him to come to his fateful decision? Perhaps even more important, what impact did his action have upon those who knew him, what meaning did they give to it, what significance does it have for them today'

Zahn could ask the question in those terms, of course, as he was researching the book in the late 1950s when many of those who had known Franz were still alive.

What we reflect on each year in this service is what significance does Franz's action have for us now, in the world in which we live in 2024 - what meaning do we attach to it.

What I want to suggest this year is that Franz's decision, his resistance and its inevitable consequence (whether or not he would ever have perceived it this way) was an act of prophetic love.

In the words of our reading from John's gospel, he laid down his life for us. He laid down his life as a prophetic reminder of the timeless truth of what it would mean and what it might cost to be a Christian in the face of Empire, in the face of a violent and unjust ideology that had taken power.

I think it is the clarity of thought and conviction in Blessed Franz that most struck me when I read Gordon Zahn's book. He saw so clearly that you simply couldn't be a Catholic, a Christian and also a Nazi let alone fight for them. This wasn't some blind, simplistic black and white fundamentalism - despite all the accusations that he had become extreme in his Catholicism. No - he saw the principality, the power and he named it and resisted it.

What about us ?

We will say, of course, that we are not leaders, that we don't have the voice or the profile to have any impact. But then neither did Franz. Outside of a very local community in 1943, no one knew who he was or the stand he was taking. He didn't have a platform or a position that gave him a voice. He was an ordinary person just like us. But as he told us in our reading from his writings - we are just the people the world is looking for.

'Words teach, but personal example shows their meaning. Even if we are as silent as a wall, we can nevertheless do much good. People want to observe Christians who have taken a stand in the contemporary world, Christians who live amid all of the darkness with clarity, insight, and conviction, Christians who live with the purest peace of mind, courage, and dedication amid the absence of peace and joy, amid the self-seeking and the hatred.'

In an act of love, on this day in 1943, Franz Jägerstätter laid down his life for the church, for us that we might remember and live this truth.

Bl Franz - pray for us.

LINK

A Hidden Life: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/38468