SAINT FEAST DAY 12 AUGUST: BL. KARL LEISNER

 

 ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST 

Saints celebrated on the 12th of August

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

BL. KARL LEISNER, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Blessed Karl Leisner was born on February 28, 1915 and in 1934 he entered the seminary [...] He spent six months in compulsory agricultural work during which, despite Nazi opposition, he organised Sunday Mass for his fellow workers. His home was raided by the Gestapo, who seized his diaries and papers. These meticulously preserved documents tell how the spiritual young man became a religious leader. On March 25, 1939, Leisner was ordained deacon.

HE WAS ARRESTED

Then, during a medical examination, the doctor told him that he had contracted tuberculosis. He was sent to a sanatorium in the Black Forest, where he began to recover but it was during his recovery that a fellow patient heard him criticise Hitler. The Gestapo arrested him on November 9, 1939. He was initially imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but was moved to Dachau on December 14, 1941. Prisoners often had to work outside in snow or rain and sleep in their wet clothes. He was beaten unconscious by two guards. By March 1942, he was spitting blood and was put in a room that was crowded with over 100 TB patients. 

HE WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST IN SECRET

On December 17, 1944, a fellow prisoner, Bishop Gabriel Piguet, secretly ordained him a priest. He only celebrated one Mass. When Dachau was liberated in 1945, Leisner was taken to a sanatorium near Munich. He died there a few months later, on August 12, 1945.

On a visit to Berlin in 1996, Pope John Paul II recognised Leisner as a martyr for the Catholic faith and beatified him. His feast day is August 12.

(This article was published in “The Catholic Universe”, paper edition, on 31 March 2013)