On Easter Sunday 1942 Father Emil Kapaun, the POW Servant of God I have written about here, here , here and here delivered an Easter Sermon. Go here to read it.
Nine years later, shortly before his death in a Chinese prisoner of war camp, he preached another Easter sermon. Before a crude wooden cross he gave an unforgettable sermon on the Passion of Our Lord and led the rosary using a barbed wire rosary he had made from the wire that ringed the camp. Suffering from dysentery, pneumonia and an infection in one of his legs and in his eyes and so weak he could barely stand, he somehow found the strength to help his men, in the midst of their misery, to recognize the boundless joy of Easter. In many ways the entire life of Father Kapaun was a joyful sermon on Easter.
In Fathers weakness and sufferings the Joy of Christ shines through. It’s remarkable and fitting. The essence of Christ is manifested in his obedient ones. God bless his friend and servant Fr.Kapaun.
Reading his sermon in his own handwriting, I am struck by how composed and organized and focused his thoughts are, even suffering from dysentery, starvation, infection in his legs and an eye, and pneumonia. His strength of character must have struck fear into his enemies, I assume first the Imperial Japanese, and next the Maoists.
“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. ” Rev. 6:9