The Blood of Martyrs: The Seed of Faith, by Jan Verhoeven OSC.  Edited and published by Crosier Fathers and Brothers.  Phoenix, AZ, 2012.

By Sister Irene Hartman 
(Sister has a nephew who is a Crosier brother). 

This is the story of twenty-three missionaries from Europe who were martyred in the Congo in the mid-1960's. Their life-blood has given birth  to Crosier Religious life  to about fifty Congelese men today. Based on a diary from the period of the Simba in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1964 to 1965, this book gives a day by day account of the twenty-three Crosier priests and brothers who were constantly harassed by revolutionaries and eventually murdered. These courageous men lived at a time of change and confusion, tension and fear, unrest and violence. Even though they were courageous in their faith, they felt fear for their safety and the safety of the people they lived with and served.

These men experienced ordinary and extraordinary moments during the nine-month period covered by this book. They were moved from place to place. Deprived of food and bodily comforts, confined to prisons, given promises that were seldom kept, and through it all remained steadfast in their religious way of life.

The diary ends; the men were murdered and many bodies were thrown into the river. The seed of faith began to sprout in the 1980's when a host of young men chose to become members of the Crosier family. Seminaries, houses of formation, churches, schools, and a college sprang up, proving that the martyrs' blood is the seed of faith.                                                                         



Bl. Daniel Brottier (1876-1936): February 28

Daniel spent most of his life in the trenches-one way or another.

Born in France in 1876, Daniel was ordained in 1899 and began a teaching career. That didn't satisfy him long. He wanted to use his zeal for the gospel far beyond the classroom. He joined the missionary Congregation of the Holy Spirit, which sent him to Senegal, West Africa. After eight years there, his health was suffering. He was forced to return to France, where he helped raise funds for the construction of a new cathedral in Senegal.

At the outbreak of World War I Daniel became a volunteer chaplain and spent four years at the front. He did not shrink from his duties. Indeed, he risked his life time and again in ministering to the suffering and dying. It was miraculous that he did not suffer a single wound during his 52 months in the heart of battle.

After the war he was invited to help establish a project for orphaned and abandoned children in a Paris suburb. He spent the final 13 years of his life there. He died in 1936 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Paris only 48 years later.