APRIL 2016
LEARNING, FAITH & LEADERSHIP A Kennedy Catholic Lancer Publication
COMMUNI-K PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Life with Purpose “God is not accountable to us, but we are to Him. I know what may lie in wait for us....and yet I find life beautiful and meaningful.” Etty Hillesum who wrote these words in Amsterdam in 1942, was a young 28 year old Jewish woman and gifted writer who kept a diary during the German occupation of Holland. The diary portrays an inner transformation of an independent woman preoccupied with worldly pleasures and sensuality, into a person of great spiritual depth and wisdom. The diaries chronicle Etty’s inner growth and have become an authentic classic of twentieth century spirituality.
Mike Prato - President
In 1942, she voluntarily went to the German internment camp for Jews at Westerbork in Holland to serve those who were under arrest and detained. However on September 8, 1943, she and her entire family were transported to Auschwitz, where she died two months later in the gas chambers (Harris, 2015). Etty Hillesum became an acquaintance the week after Easter, as part of a homily given by Fr. Tim Clark, pastor of Our Lady of the Lake. We had a mutual friend in Kirk Hilsabeck, a father of two Kennedy [Catholic] graduates, who just lost his 8 year battle with cancer. As Kirk’s doctor would say after mysteriously living past the diagnosis of 18 months,” You are the healthiest dying man I have ever seen!” Father Tim’s take on Kirk’s last years were about living each day with purpose. Kirk knew the end game better than most. Similar to Etty, death was inevitable; so now what? For Kirk, it was putting his house in order, figuratively and literally, not allowing the sun to set on how God was to use him. Likewise, Etty’s diaries allow us to see how in the midst of the horrors and atrocities, she could rise above the hate and evil to reveal a tremendous inner strength. What a lesson for us all to learn! Each day is a day given to us by God, to influence according to God’s divine will. What plagues us all can be attributed to the future, the anxieties, the fears and the desolation that ultimately freezes us. For Etty, Kirk, and for each of us, let us put into practice Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel. “Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” Look into who God has put into your life and commit to living each moment with purpose and in the midst of what crowds out that feeling of peace, pray for the inner strength to live fully in Christ today, finding every moment “beautiful and meaningful,” regardless. Harris, Paul. “Etty Hillesum: Meditator and Peace Activist,” 1914-1943. The World Community For Christian Meditation. 2015.
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