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This week’s missionary hero is a Dutch Carmelite priest who gave his life for the Faith.
Anno Sjoera Brandsma, nicknamed “Shorty,” was born on February 23, 1881 in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands to Titus Brandsma and his wife Tjitsje Postma. His family, devout Catholics in a Calvinist area of the country, ran a dairy farm. In time, three of his four sisters became religious sisters, and his brother became a Franciscan priest.
Anno attended a Franciscan minor seminary from ages 11 to 17, but an intestinal disorder barred him from becoming a Franciscan.
In 1898, however, Anno entered the Order of Carmelites of the Ancient Observance (O. Carm.) and took the name Titus, in honor of his deceased father. He was ordained a priest in 1905 and received his doctorate in philosophy in 1909 from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In addition to his native Dutch, Fr. Titus also spoke English, Frisian, Italian, and he was able to read Spanish. In fact, one of his scholastic projects was translating works of St. Teresa of Avila into Dutch.
Fr. Titus’ priesthood was lived as a journalist, speaker, university professor, and anti-Nazi agitator. In fact, he served time as an editor of a newspaper and a university president. Though he was a scholar and university professor, he was most famous for his availability to students and others. In photos, he is often seen at his desk smoking a cigar.
In 1935, he began writing publicly against anti-Jewish marriage laws, and he said that no Catholic publication could publish Nazi propaganda and still call itself “Catholic.” Because of his anti-Nazi work, the Gestapo arrested him on January 19, 1942. He spent time in various Nazi prisons – Scheveningen, Amersfoort, and Cleves – often punished for ministering to other prisoners. Finally, Fr. Titus was taken to the notorious Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, on June 19, 1942.
In Dachau, the guards worked him very hard, fed him very little, and beat him every day. Despite this treatment, Fr. Titus asked his fellow prisoners to pray for the salvation of the guards. When he could no longer work because of the effects of the mistreatment of his body, the authorities performed medical experiments on his body. Finally, on July 26, 1942, a nurse who had left the Catholic Church, killed him with a lethal injection.
Pope John Paul II beatified Titus Brandsma on November 3, 1985. Blessed Titus Brandsma’s feast day is July 26.
