Alfons Maria Mazurek

Blessed Alfons Maria of the Holy Spirit O.C.D.
Priest, Martyr
Born	Józef Mazurek (1882-01-26)26 January 1882 Baranówka, Lubelskie, Poland
Died	18 August 1944(1944-08-18) (aged 62) Nawojowa Góra, Małopolskie, Poland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Feast	January 21

Alfons Maria Mazurek (1891–1944) was a Polish Carmelite friar, prior and priest. He was shot by the Gestapo. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II.^[1]

Biography

Józef Mazurek was born in the family of Wojciech and Marianna née Goździów. After graduating from the Small Seminary of the Discalced Carmelites in Wadowice and the local grammar school, in 1908 he entered the novitiate in Czerna, taking the name of Alfons Maria from the Holy Spirit. He studied theology, philosophy in Krakow, Linz, Vienna and there in the cathedral of St. Stephen, on July 16, 1916, he was ordained priest .

He was a professor and rector of the Carmelite seminary and director of the tertiary at the monastery in Wadowice . In 1930 he was the prior of the monastery in Czerna . In 1936, he became the first visitator of the Carmelite tribes in Poland. He wrote Statutes for them in 1937. He also left in the manuscript elaborate church songs (he is the author of Tam in the silence of the blue forests ). In Czerna he was a church choir at a high level. He prepared for the printing of a breviary for thirds and the resumption of retreats written by the carmelite Fr. Marcin Rubczyński. He published articles in the pages of "Głos Karmelu" (letters from "college on the Gorka" and texts for thirds).

Disconnected from the group of monks and residents of Czerna, who were to work on the fortifications, he died martyred on August 28, 1944, shot by an SS soldier .

He was beatified by John Paul II on June 13, 1999 along with a group of Polish martyrs of the Second World War .

His liturgical memory is celebrated as a memorial of death [2] and a group of 108 blessed.

The relics of Blessed Alfonso are in the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Wadowice.

References