27 July -- Bl Titus Brandsma, O. Carm.

Today is the feast of Blessed Titus Brandsma, O.Carm.   That's him* in the picture above with his beloved pipe.  He was a martyr of the second world war, dying in Dachau for his insistence on maintaining Catholic truth in the teeth of Nazi objections.  So he's too new to be in the traditional Roman calendar and he's not in the Pauline calendar.  But he's an obligatory memorial in the Ancient Observance Carmelite calendar and an optional one in the Discalced calendar.   I would hope he would be in the local Dutch calendars, but I don't have enough Dutch to look it up.  Or, indeed, any Dutch if it comes to that.

In any event, it's Sunday so he's liturgically overlooked everywhere anyway.

But as he's a favourite of mine, The Inn will do what it can in lieu of a liturgical celebration  and that is to cite you to an excellent site containing biography, pictures, and some of his writings.  You can find it here.  If that one is too long, there is a somewhat shorter vita at EWTN's site here.  But  really: give the first link a look-in and try some of  his lectures.  There's some beautiful stuff there.

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(*I know, I know.  But I just can bring myself to say "That's he".  It sounds wrong.)