A Berlin monastic church of blood
shed by true witnesses to freedom’s love:
These few who stood against the flood
of hate from tyrants they rebuffed.
Not far from here, these martyrs were killed
for facing down the brownshirts’ might,
in hopes that all would someday be filled
with the will to live for love’s delight.
Here Mary sits with her holy child,
carved of warm wood, set on cold stone.
She bears an expression, calm and mild,
with nothing around them: alone.
Her robes are daubed in palest blue
while her hair with a golden crown is wed;
her baby son wears redder hues
that foreshadow blood he and his martyrs shed.
This blessèd Mary’s calm defies the fear
decreed by despots in past and present years —
Softly, she whispers her granite will: Defy
all tyranny ’til hate’s tides subside.
Inspired by this Madonna and child statue: https://bsky.app/profile/jackgroundhog.bsky.social/post/3lh7gxj7wr22u
It is to be found in a Catholic Carmelite monastery church in Berlin. It was built in the 1960s to commemorate Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) who were martyred by the Nazis, such as Alfred Delp SJ, Bernhard Lichtenberg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Helmuth James von Moltke, and others, as well as victims of the Nazis in general.
