Sister Maria willingly went to the gas chamber. Why do people do things like this?

[raccoon]

The first time I read about her, it hit me like a blow to the solar plexus.

Elizabeth Pilenko was born in 19th century Russia to an aristocratic landowning family. In 1923, she moved to Paris and became Mother Maria, a Russian Orthodox nun.

She hid Jews in occupied France and was sent to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp. She was there for quite a long time.


“One day in 1945, when women prisoners were being lined up outside the gas chamber for the fate they had come to know, a young girl began screaming with fear. As two guards moved threateningly toward her, Mother Maria ran forward and put her arms around the girl’s shoulders. Then she said:

‘Don’t be frightened. Look, I shall come with you.’

For it was Good Friday, 1945. Mother Maria, one who believed, was answering her call.”

(From One Who Believed: True Stories of Faith, by Dr. Robert B. Pamplin, Jr., published by Christ Community Church in Newberg, Oregon, 1993.)

[atreides1]

1. Faith

That's why.

[MarianJack]

2. Faith, Courage and Love.

She certainly consoled that little girl at the end of their lives.

Another example would be St. Maximillian Kolbe (I'm not sure of the spelling here). He was a priest who protected Jews and volunteered to be executed in place of a Jewish man he knew to have a family.

If death is inevitable, you CAN choose how you will face it if you have the courage to do so.

[hedgehog]

5. Kolbe is very fascinating because from what little I kow of him, he was exactly the kind of miltant,

right wing priest that would drive most people nuts today.
from Wiki:

"During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes St. Pius X and Benedict XV by the Freemasons in Rome and was inspired to organize the Militia Immaculata, or Army of Mary, to work for conversion of sinners and the enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. In 1918 he was ordained a priest. In the conservative publications of the Militia Immaculatae, he particularly condemned Freemasonry, Communism, Zionism, Capitalism and Imperialism."


But when the chips were down, he came through heroiclly. Ten men were chosen to be starved to death as group punishmnet after a prisoner attempted to escape. Koolbe stepped up to take the place of a family man (a Pole by the way, not a Jew). He consoled the other nine men through several weeks of starvation and dehyudration and was finally executed by lethal injection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe


I find it silly that people argue over whether or not he was a matyr. True, he wasn't executed for arguing a doctrine such as the Immaculate Conception. On the other hand, matyr means "witness for the faith". ""Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." Isn't that what the Christian faith is all about?

[tonkatoy57]

3. Well, agree or not, believe or not..

She had faith.

Mark's gospel is all about failed discipleship. Jesus tells his followers several times what is going to happen to him and explains that his path is open to them as well. They too, can "drink from the same cup". Well, they don't.

I guess Sister Maria was ready to drink from the same cup as Jesus.

[GreenEyedLefty]

4. Why did they go willingly?

Because it was either go with dignity or be shot.

I'm sure faith had something to do with it, or perhaps it was resignation.

[MedleyMisty]

6. I don't think it had anything to do with faith

I would like to think I would have done the same thing. Human compassion has nothing to do with belief in myths and it's quite possible to care about others and to have dignity without believing in imaginary stuff.

She cared about the girl and wanted to comfort her and she most likely didn't know that the war was going to end soon. She probably thought that a death with compassion and love was better than being starved and worked to death in the camp. It would certainly be more meaningful. And yes, it's also possible to have meaning without myths.