Denver Catholic

14 OCTOBER 24-NOVEMBER 13, 2015 | DENVER CATHOLIC Voices B lessed Marcel Callo just needs to be more famous. His story is equal parts Pier Giorgio, Maximilian Kolbe, Romeo Montague, and something that is uniquely his own. Here is his life in blog form: THAT KID AT YOUTH GROUP Marcel was the second of nine children. His family was French and poor, but happy, and raised him in the faith. He started working when he was 13, which is when we get one of my favorite insights into him: He was kind of an obnoxious Christian. His coworkers would make jokes about women, so Marcel refused to have anything to do with them. He also refused to date, saying, "I am not one to amuse myself with the heart of a lady, since my love is pure and noble," among other things that kind of make me want to take his lunch money. Most of his (very few) biographers try to pass this o„ as piety, but I think he was just your typical overzealous young Catholic. He even spent all of his time with his equivalent of a youth group, the Jeunesse Ouvri- ere Chretienne (JOC), or Young Christian Workers. The JOC is where Marcel learned to stop being so obnoxious. They stressed the importance of community and intellectual formation, as well as a robust prayer life. Marcel played sports through them, and began to spend 15 minutes a day in quiet prayer and went to Confession every other week. He still wasn't perfected, as he was known for losing his temper with people who questioned Church teaching. And yet, as hebecame a leader within the JOC, he started to lighten up. A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT The JOC was also where Marcelmet the love of his life, Marguerite Derniaux. They were engaged, but World War II and his subsequent martyrdom prevented them from ever getting married. His town, Rennes, was bombed on March 8, 1943. Marcel and his JOC friends volunteered to recover bodies and help the injured. Marcel was sifting through the debris of an o¨ce building when he recognized his little sister's leg and shoe sticking out from a pile of debris. He had to break the news to his family. A few weeks later, Marcel learned that he was being sent to a forced labor camp in Germany. He told his family that he was going as a missionary, because there was an urgent apostolate waiting for him in the barracks. JESUS IN THE BARRACKS Unfortunately, the reality of forced labor was harder than he had anticipated, but this last round of su„ering was what made him a saint. He was sent to a town without a single Catholic Church and forced to help make rockets that were used against his countrymen. He went three months without his family, his fiancee, or the Eucharist, all the while living on starvation rations and rec- reating the weapons that had killed his own sister. In other words, legalistic lip-service Christianity wasn't going to work. He developed infected teeth, boils, and headaches from the deplorable condi- tions. He sunk into a deep depression. And then, just when everything seemed hope- less, he encountered Christ. Marcel discovered that Sunday Mass was o„ered in an obscure room of the barracks, and was able to receive the Eucharist. He wrote to Marguerite,"Finally Christ reacted. He made me to understand that the depression was not good. I had to keep busy with my friends and then joy and relief would come back to me." MARCEL THE MISSIONARY And that's exactly what he did. He rededicated himself to the prayer life he and Marguerite had established before the war. He also began to orga- nize JOC-inspired activities for his friends in the barracks. They would play sports and cards, perform plays, and pray together. In short, he stopped look- ing at his awful life and instead focused on choosing to love his God and his community. His hope and joy came back and spread to his fellow prisoners. The S.S. also noticed the change in Marcel. They arrested him on April 19, 1944. While the o¨cers search through his belongings, his friends asked for a reason for his arrest. One of the o¨cers replied, "Monsieur est trop Catholique" (transla- tion: He is too Catholic). MARTYRDOM Marcel was sent to the concentration camp at Mathausen. The conditions were even worse than in the forced labor camp, but Marcel knew how to keep his joy. He continued to pray and encourage his fellow prisoners. One of those prisoner had smug- gled in a box of consecrated hosts and was able to give him his final Eucharist, also known as Viatacum. His joy and hope were present to the end. The latrines at Mathausen were designed so that weaker prisoners would fall into them. Marcel nearly drowned in one, but was pulled out by a Colonel Thibideux. Marcel was too weak to even speak at this point. However, the colonel remem- bered that even covered in human waste and dying, "there was a holiness in [Marcel's] eyes. I had never before seen anyone look that way!" BEATIFICATION Marcel died on the feast of St. Joseph,March 19, 1945. It was exactly two years after he left France.The last time he had seen Marguerite was at the train sta- tion, when she told him he was going to be a martyr. He told her that he would never be good enough for that. St. John Paul II disagreed, and declared him a martyr for the faith on October 4, 1987. The pope said that like Christ, Marcel "loved until the end, and his entire life became the Eucharist. "Received into the everlasting joy of God, [Marcel] testifies that the Christian faith cannot sepa- rate Heaven from Earth. Heaven is prepared on Earth through justice and love," the pope said. "Nourished by prayer, the sacraments, and apostolic action....he built the Church with his brothers, the young Christian workers. It is in the Church that we become Christian, and it is with the Church that we build a new humanity."*** ***My translation; not o¨cial Blessed Marcel Callo: The nerd's alternative to Pier Giorgio BY MELISSA KEATING 303-715-3123 | melissa.keating@archden.org www.twitter.com/mkeats42

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