Martyr(1906-1945)
Her life
+ Natalia was born in Rzeszów, Poland.
+ An unmarried laywoman, she was a teacher in Poznan and very active in her parish.
+ During the Nazis occupation of Poland, with the accompanying attempts to exterminate Poland’s Jewish community and those Christians opposed to the Nazi cause, Natalia became a member of the Polish underground.
+ In 1943, she volunteered to travel into the Third Reich in order to give spiritual comfort to women who were sentenced to hard labor. She was arrested, tortured, subjected to public ridicule, and ultimately sentenced to death in the concentration camp in Ravensbrück, Germany.
+ On Good Friday, 1945, she climbed on a stool in the barracks and spoke of the meaning of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. Two days later, on Easter Sunday, March 31, she died in the gas chambers.
+ Blessed Natalia was beatified with 107 other Polish Martyrs of World War II in 1999.
For reflection
“For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to these women, who despised life in the world, and have reached the rewards of the kingdom and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb.”—Entrance Antiphon, Mass from the Common of Martyrs—For a Holy Woman-Martyr
Prayer
O God, by whose gift strength is made perfect in weakness, grant to all who honor the glory of blessed Natalia that she, who drew from you the strength to triumph, may likewise always obtain from you the grace of victory for us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from The Roman Missal: Common of Martyrs—For a Holy Woman-Martyr)
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.
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