Prayer to Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka — religious beheaded by the Nazis

Austrian Franciscan religious, born Helene Kafka in Husovice (Brno, now Czechia) on 1 May 1894 and raised in Vienna. She became head nurse at the hospital of Mödling. When the Nazi administration ordered the removal of crucifixes from the wards, she had new crucifixes hung in every room, and wrote a satirical poem against Hitler. Arrested by the Gestapo on Ash Wednesday 1942, she was sentenced to death for “high treason” in October 1942 and beheaded by the guillotine on 30 March 1943. She refused the possibility of saving her life in exchange for leaving the Order. Beatified by St John Paul II in Vienna on 21 June 1998 — first virgin martyr of Vienna. Feast: 30 March.

Lord, God of all strength, who gave to your servant, Blessed Maria Restituta Kafka, Franciscan religious, the courage to hang the sign of your Cross on the hospital walls amid the fury of Nazism, and to maintain on the guillotine fidelity to her religious vows: grant to all Christians persecuted for the sake of the Cross the same serenity of faith, and to us, in the daily round of our profession, the courage to raise up the Crucifix in the spaces from which they would wish to erase it. Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.