BL. ALOIS STEPNIAC, BISHOP AND MARTYR - 10 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 10th of February

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. ALOIS STEPNIAC, BISHOP AND MARTYR

Blessed Alois Stepinac, Archbishop of Zagreb, cardinal, martyr, born May 8, 1898 in Brezarić, district of Krašić near Karlovac in Croatia; died February 10, 1960.

A DEEP LOVE FOR THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Alois Victor Stepinac, the son of a wealthy farmer, his mother instilled in him a deep love for Mary as a child. He was ordained a priest in 1930. In 1937 he became the successor of the deceased archbishop and chose the verse from Psalm 70 as his motto: in te, Domine, speravi: In you, God, I put my trust.

"IN TE, DOMINE, SPERAVI"

The situation in his diocese was extremely difficult: in many schools, religious education was completely forbidden. Personally, Archbishop Alois Stepinac was more than undemanding and always touchingly concerned with the social needs of the poorer people.

During the Second World War he organised campaigns to support those in need and the persecuted, distributed food, hid the persecuted and campaigned particularly for orphaned children.

"A SWARM OF LOCUSTS"

After the end of World War II, Josip Tito's communist partisans took power. As the partisans approached Zagreb, the archbishop was warned that the communist partisans would count him among the war criminals and possibly execute him. He decided to stay and made the declaration that the Croatian people rejected any regime that did not honour the Catholic Faith. In this context he said: "Today we are witnessing how the communists are attacking our homeland like a swarm of locusts. They are the ones who want to rip our God out of our hearts."

16 YEARS PRISON AND HARD LABOUR

Archbishop Alois Stepinac was arrested in May 1945 and sentenced to 16 years in prison and hard labour in October 1946 for his alleged collaboration with the fascist Ustasha regime in Croatia. The actual reason, however, was his staunch refusal to form a national church independent of Rome in accordance with the wish of the communists. Pope Pius XII described the trial as tristissimo processo: the saddest trial. Archbishop Stepniac wrote on the last page of his 1946 personal planner: "All for the greater glory of God, including my captivity."

HE MAY HAVE BEEN POISONED

In January 1953, Pope Pius XII bestowed on Archbishop Stepinac the cardinal dignity. In the same year, however, he fell ill with an incurable blood disease similar to leukemia, and the suspicion of a gradual poisoning by the government has not gone silent among Croatian Catholic church leaders to this day.