BY FIRE INTO LIGHT

Malham, Joseph M. Four Catholic Martyrs of the Nazi Camps. Titus Brandsma, Pere Jacques, Karl Leisner & Edith Stein. Fiery Arrow series no. 4. 285pp PBK.

In the Nazi concentration camps countless people were martyred as a result of hate and foolishness disguised as the honorable logic of progress and national security. For many of them this meant a spiritual journey into an abyss of grief and brutalization. Some of them remain inscribed in the common recollection of mankind as martyrs of their faith, a faith in God and in the dignity of man created to the image of God. In this book we find the description of the spiritual biography of four of them: the Jewish philosopher Edith Stein who entered a carmelite monastery, the carmelites Titus Brandsma and Jacques de Jesus, the deacon Karl Leisner ordained to the priesthood in Dachau: Jew, German, Frenchman and Dutchman. Their journey was heroic, but the fire of systematic destruction of their body gave room to the high flight of their humanity into the light of God's unconditional mercy.