Saint Titus Brandsma

Titus Brandsma OCarm was a Dutch Carmelite priest and a professor of philosophy. Brandsma was vehemently opposed to Nazi ideology and spoke out against it many times before World War II. He was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp, where he was murdered in 1942. Brandsma was beatified by the Catholic Church in November 1985 as a martyr of the faith and canonized on 15 May 2022 by Pope Francis. Brandsma was born Anno Sjoerd Brandsma to Titus Brandsma (died 1920) and his wife Tjitsje Postma (died 1933) at Oegeklooster, near Hartwerd, in the Province of Friesland in 1881. His parents, who ran a small dairy farm, were devout and committed Catholics, a minority in a predominantly Calvinist region. With the exception of one daughter, all of their children (three daughters and two sons) entered religious orders. From the age of 11, Brandsma pursued his secondary studies in the town of Megen, at a Franciscan-run minor seminary for boys considering a priestly or religious vocation. Brandsma entered the novitiate of the Carmelite friars in Boxmeer on 17 September 1898, where he took the religious name "Titus" (in honour of his father) by which he is now known. He professed his first vows in October 1899. Ordained a priest in 1905, Brandsma was knowledgeable in Carmelite mysticism and was awarded a doctorate of philosophy from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1909. From 1909 to 1923 he lived in Oss and worked as a writer and teacher. From 1916 on, he initiated and led a project to translate the works of Teresa of Ávila into Dutch. In 1919 he founded and for two years acted as head of a secondary school in Oss—the present day Titus Brandsma Lyceum. In 1921, Brandsma worked to resolve a controversy concerning Belgian artist Albert Servaes' depiction of the Stations of the Cross. From this came his series of meditations on each of the 14 stations.