A "Directed Retreat"

When I visit the monastery in New Hampshire, it is partly a time to visit with the monks I'm acquainted with and to become acquainted with the new monks. It is also partly a "self-directed retreat." That is, as I've described. I bring with me some material I've chosen to reflect on and pray about, but in that, I'm on my own. Nobody is meeting with me to discuss what I'm getting out of it or suggest other ways of thinking.

This past weekend, I went on a retreat given at the Jesuits' Campion Center in Weston, MA. There was a director — a Xaverian brother, not a Jesuit — who gave five talks and provided related material for the 16 participants to reflect on. (A directed retreat can also involve one-on-one meetings with a director, but that was not the case with this retreat.) There was a talk on Friday evening, three on Saturday, and one on Sunday morning. We also prayed Morning and Evening Prayer from the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours for Saturday and for Sunday morning.

The theme was "A Hidden Life." It turned out that this title was a reference to the recently released movie with that title directed by Terrence Malick. It's about Blessed Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer born in 1907 and beheaded in 1943 for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to Hitler when he was called to active duty in the army. Of course, we were encouraged to consider what lessons we might take for our own, fairly ordinary, lives and for our contemporary world from the life of Franz Jägerstätter.

He was born and lived in a village of about 500 people on the border with Bavaria. As an adolescent and young man he was fun-loving, prone to fighting, and a skirt-chaser. He fathered a daughter out of wedlock (and always supported her and her mother with food from his farm). He went to work in the mines for a couple of years, saving enough money to buy a motorcycle, the first in his village.

After his marriage to a devout Catholic he regularly attended Mass, read the Bible and lives of saints, prayed at home, and became sexton of the parish church. With the freedom of movement his motorcycle gave, he learned of the atrocities of  the Hitler regime in Germany, such as exterminating the mentally ill. So when Germany annexed Austria and held a referendum to approve the annexation, Franz voted "No," the only no vote in the village. He would respond to the greeting, "Heil Hitler," by saying "Pfui Hitler!"

He was not a pacifist, and took basic army training in 1940. But when he was called to active duty in early 1943, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler, despite assurances from his parish priest and bishop that he could take the oath. He was ultimately convicted of demoralizing the troops and beheaded on August 9, 1943, in Brandenburg Prison, Berlin. He left behind his wife and their three young daughters, as well as the fourth daughter.

While researching German Catholicism under Hitler, Gordon Zahn came across a reference Jägerstätter. It was the 1950's, so he was able to interview Franz's widow and children, and many other villagers who knew him. Zahn wrote a book about him, In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter. As his story gradually became known, the bishop of Bombay called attention to him in support of inclusion of inclusion of the right of conscientious objection at the Vatican Council.

After the normal investigations into his life, he was declared a martyr for the faith and he was beatified at Linz, Austria, the seat of his diocese, in 2007. His widow Franziska (1913-2013) was present for the Mass.

Among the materials the director gave us for further reflection were reviews of "A Hidden Life" in The Tablet https://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/17284/film-tribute-to-the-catholic-who-was-executed-for-refusing-to-fight-for-hitler and Commonweal https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/deepening-riddle ; a review in National Catholic Reporter online of Franz Jägerstätter: Letters and Writings from Prison https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/collected-writings-franz-jagerstatter;a 2007 article by Rev. Emmanuel Charles McCarthy titled "The Man Who Chose to See" (publication not identified) https://www.emmanuelcharlesmccarthy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Issue-70_Vocations_Prayer_Franz-Jagerstatter-The-Man-Who-Chose-To-See.pdf ; and a 1994 articlw in America, "In Celebration of Martyrdom," by Gordon Zahn.

The director gave a talk about the hiddenness of Jesus, largely based of insights of John P. Meier in the first volume of his series about Jesus, A Marginal Jew. Jesus was a common name. Jesus of Nazareth was nowhere near the centers of power, not a member of the priestly class but an ordinary workman and a layman. He also presented some thoughts based on A Secular Age, by Charles Taylor. We cannot expect to de-secularize our culture anytime in the foreseeable future, so what we need to do is be able to swim against the tide by presenting alternative  concepts and inviting people to think about those alternatives.

I has heard about Jägerstätter before, but knew very little about him. So this was a real eye-opener about him. Beyond that, the retreat invites reflection and prayer on my role in the world today, with all the issues facing us — as well as some thought about what we can ask of our bishops nowadays in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, especially unreflective patriotism.

When I got there, I was distressed to realize I had forgotten to pack a timer to use as an alarm clock. But both mornings I woke spontaneously with enough time to freshen up and get dressed before breakfast, the first event of the day.