{"id":45883,"date":"2025-10-13T16:13:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/?p=45883"},"modified":"2025-10-13T16:20:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T16:20:42","slug":"abide-by-the-limit-cross-the-limit-blessed-titus-zeman-martyr-and-the-relevance-of-his-message-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/our-saints\/abide-by-the-limit-cross-the-limit-blessed-titus-zeman-martyr-and-the-relevance-of-his-message-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Abide by the limit, cross the limit. Blessed Titus Zeman, martyr, and the relevance of his message today"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don Tito Zeman (1915-1969), a Slovak Salesian, lived his priestly vocation with evangelical radicalism right up to his martyrdom. As a child, he experienced the trial of illness and, cured through the intercession of Mary, he matured his decision to consecrate himself to God among the Salesians. Hindered by family and circumstances, he nevertheless entered the congregation and was ordained a priest in 1940. During the communist persecution in Czechoslovakia, he risked his life to clandestinely accompany numerous clerics and priests across the border so that they could continue their formation and receive ordination. Betrayed and arrested in 1951, he suffered torture and 13 years of harsh imprisonment, experiencing pain as an offering of love. His faith revitalised many cellmates and even some persecutors who, repentant, asked for forgiveness. Beatified in 2017, Don Tito leaves a very timely message: freedom is preserved by fidelity to conscience, truth is defended with love, and vocation is realised by giving one’s life for others.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

1.<\/b><\/strong> Brief biographical profile of Fr Titus Zeman<\/b><\/strong>
\n1.1.<\/b><\/strong> The entrusted limit: Titus from illness to recovery<\/b><\/strong>
\nWho is Fr Titus Zeman?
\nHe was born in Vajnory, a small agricultural suburb on the outskirts of Bratislava, on 4 January 1915, the first of ten brothers and sisters. Often ill, he recovered suddenly in the spring of 1925 through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after entrusting himself to her and asking pilgrims to pray at the Shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows in \u0160a\u0161tin. Titus had promised Mary that, if she healed him, \u2018he would become her son forever\u2019, including in this simple formula a firm intention of consecration. Don Bosco’s sons had arrived in \u0160a\u0161tin the year before, and Titus reasoning as a child was \u2018I was healed by Our Lady venerated in \u0160a\u0161tin. The Salesians live there. So the Mary\u2019s house is the house of the Salesians. Then I will also be a Salesian\u2019.
\nFr Titus had experienced the limit (of health) and had overcome it by entrusting himself (to Mary).<\/p>\n

1.2.<\/b><\/strong> Beyond the limit enthusiastically: Titus and the conquest of his vocation<\/b><\/strong>
\nTitus had never hinted at a possible vocation.
\nParents and parish priest firmly opposed it and tested him for two years. When an aunt finally accompanied him to \u0160a\u0161tin, she even tried to make an arrangement with the then rector, Fr Josef Bokor, to pressure the young boy into giving in. The Zemans were very poor, afraid of the huge financial commitment required to study for the priesthood.
\nFr Bokor challenged Titus. He reminded him that he would be the youngest there, that the place stood by a swamp and people had to wash with cold water. That is when he felt like crying, there would be no mother to console him. At that time, little Titus was very thin, still a little puny. Perhaps he looked younger than his 12 years. He did not come from Salesian works, he did not know Don Bosco. For Fr Bokor, he was a little boy who had come out of nowhere.
\nTitus, however, was adamant. To an astonished Fr Bokor he replied: \u201cWhat are you saying? It is true, I will not have my earthly mother here, but there is the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Mothers\u201d: she would be his mother. Finally he said \u201cYou can do what you want with me, but take me here!\u201d He went as far as telling his parents \u201cIf I had died, surely you would have found the money for my funeral. Please use that money for my studies’. Titus fought, surprised everyone and won: he would be a Salesian priest.
\nThe stages of his formation led him to profess perpetual vows on 7 March 1938 in Rome in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and to be ordained a priest on 23 June 1940 in Turin in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians.
\nShortly before his perpetual profession, Titus offered a few years of his life to God for his mother, who was very ill at the time and who would go on living after her son\u2019s offering, also giving him his last little sister (Franti\u0161ka, born in 1939).
\nImmediately after his priestly ordination, however, he had to leave Italy and return home because of the drama of the war.
\nOn 2 August 1940, on the occasion of the first Mass in his homeland, some buns were found burnt inside, of a blood-red colour: the event was interpreted as an omen of martyrdom.
\nFirst a student and then Fr Titus taught as a science teacher, with degrees in Chemistry and Natural Sciences. In 1946, the communist director of the institute had the symbol of the cross removed from the classrooms. Titus, with two others, re-hung the crucifixes (if necessary asking the Salesians to remove their own): it was an act of love for the Lord, but also of justice for believers, to whom the Constitution at that time formally still guaranteed full expression of religious freedom. He was dismissed, but throughout Slovakia he began to be identified as the \u2018priest who stood up for the cross of Christ\u2019.
\nFr Titus had experienced the limit of opposition and had resolved it by confronting it.<\/p>\n

1.3.<\/b><\/strong> The limit foreseen and circumvented: Titus and crossing the\u00a0 Morava<\/b><\/strong>
\nTito was just as ready in 1950, after the Night of the Barbarians (13-14 April), when all the religious in what was then Czechoslovakia were interned in concentration camps; the superiors were separated from their communities; the youngest were sent home or enlisted in the auxiliary technical battalions; those close to the priesthood were prevented from finishing their studies in theology to be ordained. Titus then, with Fr Ernest Mac\u00e1k and Fr Franti\u0161ek Reves, prepared a courageous undertaking to save vocations. Fr Titus would accompany Salesian clerics and some diocesan priests to the non-Soviet part of Austria, and then go with the theology students as far as Turin.
\nHe then crossed the Morava, which marks the border between Slovakia and Austria:
\n– between August and September 1950 (the first group crossed);
\n– autumn 1950 (when he returned alone to his homeland)
\n– also autumn 1950 (when he accompanied the second group)
\n– in March\/April 1951 (when he returned alone to his homeland, amid great risks and hardships)
\n– in April 1951 (when he was captured at the border).
\nIn September 1950, Titus meets the then Rector Major Fr Peter Ricaldone in Turin: he recommended caution, but blessed the enterprise that Titus until then – unable to ask for authorisation from his Slovakian superiors locked up in concentration camps – had understood as presumptive obedience<\/i><\/em>.
\nIn January 1951, he experienced an intense moment of crisis and conversion, which was to prove decisive.
\nIn April 1951, he was captured – when he could have saved himself by then – because he had decided to slow down to help some tired priests and had stayed with his own, loving them to the end<\/i><\/em>, the Good Shepherd who does not flee when the wolf comes, but gives his life.
\nFr Titus had sensed the limit and had managed it by anticipating and circumventing it.<\/p>\n

1.4.<\/b><\/strong> The limit that becomes light and path: the \u2018vocation within a vocation\u2019<\/b><\/strong>
\nWorthy of particular relevance, therefore, is the crossing in January 1951, not an \u2018exterior\u2019 one but \u2018interior\u2019 one. At that time Titus was stuck in Austria and knew that the regime was on his trail. A man of action and enterprise, he now found himself at the mercy of situations beyond his control: a winter too harsh to attempt to ford the Morava; a general situation of alertness; a trusted guide, unjustly accused of theft, still in prison; continuous and exasperating delays.
\nHe then wrote an intense and dramatic letter to his friend Michael Lo\u0161onsk\u00fd-\u017deliar. It was 21 January and in the letter Titus expressed disorientation, fear, doubt, fatigue, the weight of temptation. He even wrote, \u201cand if you ended up in their hands [Titus asks himself], could you ask for God\u2019s help, because three times the plan was changed? Was not the threefold warning enough for you, and did you really want to make a hero of yourself, as you were told by others, and did you think God had his own plans […]?\u201d Titus here had forgotten even the strength and grace of obedience to the Rector Major; no light shone within him….
\nA few days later, however, Titus wrote a second letter to Michal. It was completely different. He quoted and commented on some passages from the Liturgy of the Word of the day, which he proclaimed during Holy Mass and which had become an intense experience of conversion: above all the phrases from the Gospel (\u2018do not be afraid… you are worth more than many sparrows\u2019) and from the First Letter of John about the obligation to commit one’s life for one’s brothers.
\nThrough this particularly painful experience Titus confronted his own limitations (fear, anguish, doubt): he overcame them to the extent that he entrusted them to Another, and let His Word read his life and convert it. The readings of that day become the answer to all of Titus’ questions; the dissolution of his doubts; the \u201cprevailing voice\u201d that imposed itself on so many other voices (including of confreres) according to which Titus was making a mistake. So, during the novena to Don Bosco in 1951, Titus – always strong – had for once felt weak himself: he had understood that \u2018limits\u2019 and \u2018boundaries\u2019 are never crossed in solitude. Awaiting him soon after: 13 years in harsh prisons; the concrete possibility of the death sentence and then definition as m.u.k.l.<\/i><\/em> or \u2018man destined for elimination\u2019; almost five final years on parole, always heavily controlled, harassed and finally treated as a guinea pig for experiments.
\nFr Titus had crossed over his limits by experiencing them.<\/p>\n

1.5.<\/b><\/strong> The limit defeated from within: 18 years of torture and harassment<\/b><\/strong>
\nThroughout the middle part of his adult life (i.e. from the age of 36 until 54) Fr Titus was deprived of freedom of movement and initiative. He was imprisoned in Bratislava Castle, Leopoldov, J\u00e1chymov, M\u00edrov, Valdice…
\nIn the terrible \u2018Tower of Death\u2019 in J\u00e1chymov he manually ground uranium, which is highly radioactive. He was covered in it. He experienced the terrible reality of solitary confinement. He was humiliated and beaten just because \u201che was Zeman\u201d. The malnutrition and torture were also ferocious, and for him they were renewed when he was called to testify at the trial of \u2018Fr Bokor and his companions\u2019: Fr Bokor himself, the rector who had finally had to accept him when, at the age of 12, Titus made him understand, in \u0160a\u0161t\u00edn, that his was a true vocation…
\nIn prison, Titus made a very personal rosary, a simple thread connected small beads made of breadcrumbs. He made one bead for each period of torture: ending up with 58… In prison, he experienced a profound identification with Ecce homo<\/i><\/em>: without Him, Titus admitted, nothing would have been bearable for him. In the meantime, he experienced severe cardiac, neurological and pulmonary impairment, leading to the shortening of his life.
\nThese were 18 years in which Titus, united with his Lord, learned to defeat limitation from within: he won because an Other won in<\/i><\/em> him, with<\/i><\/em> him and for<\/i><\/em> him. St Augustine says of the martyrs: \u201cHe who lived in them won in them.\u201d
\nTitus in these years understood that evil can attack the physical side, but not break the soul, adhesion to Christ, dedication to the Church. And so, while his moral and spiritual resistance (which the persecutors tried in vain to defeat, even through some particularly humiliating torture) led the regime to rage even more, he experienced that you can remain free even when everything else tries to enslave you; that nothing is lost, if here and now you love. Thus, he experienced an inner death but gave joy to others.
\nWith some Orthodox and Protestant prisoners he had an intense experience of ecumenism through blood: \u201cnot even a Council,\u201d these people said, \u201cwould ever have managed to bring us together like this.\u201d The evil of rampant communism thus reconstituted – in their reconciled hearts – a unity that other evils had torn apart in previous centuries. The fidelity of these friendships would always accompany Titus: he would die in the arms of a Capuchin\u00a0 priest who had fought like him in prison; the evangelical pastor Dr Jozef Jur\u00e1\u0161 would be at his funeral.
\nFr Titus had crossed over his limits by inhabiting them.<\/p>\n

1.6.<\/b><\/strong> The limit emptied and reconciled: after Fr Titus\u2019 death<\/b><\/strong>
\nOn 8 January 1969, the day of Fr Titus\u2019 birth into heaven, there was one last limit to be broken down: the persecutor\u2019s acknowledgement of his error. Titus had long since forgiven his persecutors, maintaining a heroic silence towards them even during his parole period. But them? With the \u2018Prague Spring\u2019 now over, the year before with the return of the Soviet armies, it seemed that Fr Titus (and the others) were now doomed to oblivion: the last word on his life was thus written by the persecutor himself.
\nThe course of events, however, becomes surprising at this point.
\nStill in the midst of communism, in the same year, 1969, a trial recognised some of the errors committed by the court who condemned Titus as\u00a0 a \u201csecret agent\/spy of the Vatican\u201d and \u201ctraitor\u201d: fraud, distortion, exploitation were all admitted. The odium fidei<\/i><\/em> was clear. In 1991, after the fall of the regime, the further charge of \u201cllegal border crossing\u201d was finally dropped. Fr Titus was therefore innocent. It was the same regime that had condemned him, condemning itself – only a few months after Titus\u2019 death.
\nHowever, a wound remained open between Titus and his persecutors.
\nThe court documents now confirmed the innocence of \u201cFr Titus and his companions\u201d. However, the opposition and hatred of some towards him and the reality (i.e. the Church and especially the ministerial priesthood) for which he had given his life remained.
\nTwo very peculiar facts then happened.
\nThe school principal who had caused Fr Tito\u2019s dismissal in 1946 converted before his death, and died assisted by the comfort of the sacraments.
\nThe judge who had sentenced Titus to\u00a0 \u201c25 years of hard prison without parole with loss of civil rights\u201d (though the prosecutor had asked for the death penalty for him, later excluded \u201cso as not to create a martyr\u201d) also converted and, later, on his knees in Bratislava, publicly asked for forgiveness for having condemned the innocent: the twenty or so Salesian priests that Titus had led at the risk of their lives.
\nEven the most obstinate limit to be overcome, hardness of heart, was thus \u2018emptied from within\u2019 – by the power of God and by Titus\u2019 sacrifice : it opened up to forgiveness, reconciliation and peace. Fr Titus had overcome the limitation by vanquishing it.<\/p>\n

2.<\/b><\/strong> Relevance of Fr Titus Zeman’s message, in connection with Fr Ignaz Stuchl\u00fd.<\/b><\/strong>
\nFr Titus sacrificed his life in defence of the priesthood. He wanted, as the sources state, to ensure the next apostolic generation of the Church, even in times of persecution.
\nWith his persecuted and mocked life, Fr Titus Zeman seems to be a long way from that joyful and exuberant embodiment of the Salesian charism, typical of the way it is normally presented. This unites Titus with Fr Ignaz Stuchl\u00fd, who had often faced difficult conditions and – in his positions of governance – had always experienced the fatigue of serving, literally going so far as to take the bread out of his mouth to feed his children.
\nBoth lived the dynamic of caetera tolle<\/i><\/em>, a sacrifical dimension that marked them in the practical dimension of doing and acting, which was so suited to them: Fr Stuchl\u00fd saw<\/i><\/em> himself repeatedly robbed of<\/i><\/em> the works he had given his life to build; Fr Titus, on the other hand, saw himself painfully robbed of<\/i><\/em> the Congregation he loved, and for many years (essentially: from his arrest in 1951 to his release on parole in 1964) he experienced the lacerating sense of guilt of feeling responsible for other Salesians captured with him as part of the \u2018third crossing\u2019 of the Morava River.
\nThese characteristics of their lives – of those mysteries of pain<\/i><\/em> that they both experienced in their own flesh – also seem to make them quite distant from the current context which tends to remove the experiences of pain and death and deludes itself into thinking it can rewrite the requirements of a \u2018worthy\u2019 life when it is effective and healthy. Of the new forms of ideology which see the closure of so many works even in the Church\u2019s area of activity.
\nWhat then \u2013 together with Fr Stuchl\u00fd – can be the message of Blessed Fr Titus Zeman for today?<\/p>\n

2.1.<\/b><\/strong> The fruitfulness of a work is not measured in terms of efficiency, but of effectiveness<\/b><\/strong>
\nBoth Fr Stuchl\u00fd and Fr Titus lived in penal circumstances. Obedience called them both to accomplish great things when, by human logic, nothing should reasonably have been undertaken.
\nTitus Zeman even attempted to undermine the communist regime\u2019s plan to dismantle the Church from within.
\nIgnatius Stuchl\u00fd lived and worked in chronically precarious conditions, where the rapid flourishing of Salesian works (due in large part to his unconditional dedication) alternates with the imminent collapse of these works under the pressure of external events. He also, as evidenced by the proceedings of the Cause, knew well in advance – because of \u2018that light,\u2019 as one witness argues, \u2018which is sometimes kindled in the souls of saints\u2019 and which is a pure gift of the Spirit – that the Czech Salesian work would be dispersed and that he would die in solitude. Therefore, not only did he work under extreme conditions, but he worked with undiminished dedication and joy, even knowing that a dramatic end was looming.
\nTitus and Ignaz teach us that the higher demands of obedience to God and the Church urge one to act while foreseeing that the outward fruits of such works will be short-lived, or may appear limited and precarious<\/i><\/em>.
\nTitus committed himself to the crossings knowing that it would be impossible for him to save all<\/i><\/em> or many<\/i><\/em> Salesian clerics: but only a few<\/i><\/em> (whom he chose on the basis of physical endurance [necessary for a journey on foot, swimming across the Morava, and in the Austrian and Upper Tyrolean Alps amidst freezing temperatures] and aptitude for study).
\nFr Stuchl\u00fd foresaw that some young men would lack perseverance; and he noted how the numbers of the nascent Salesian Congregation in the Czech Republic remained, although promising in some years, nevertheless low compared to the many needs of the local Church.
\nNeither Titus nor Fr Stuchl\u00fd, however, allowed themselves to be discouraged.
\nFor them, the goodness of an endeavour did not coincide with its external impact. Just as Abraham left his country trusting, or the disciples followed Jesus without yet knowing him well, and only afterwards and in retrospect understood the reason for those seemingly unreasonable gestures<\/i><\/em>, so did Titus and Stuchl\u00fd act at a time of fatigue, obscurity, without full clarity: it is not true that the truth of a quest only appears in times of special light and inner enlightenment. Even Titus, as we have read, received the decisive light in January 1952 (but he had been devoting himself to the crossings since the summer of 1951).
\nTitus and Stuchl\u00fd, like the bride in the Canticle of Canticles (signifying the Church), \u2018get up\u2019 and \u2018go out\u2019 to seek \u2018the beloved of their hearts\u2019 when it is still dark, without waiting for the full light to come, because then it would be too late<\/i><\/em>. And is this not a \u2018preventive\u2019 method in the manner of Don Bosco? A preventive \u2018method\u2019 that has a prophetic flavour, as a profound ability to grasp the signs of the times?
\nToday<\/i><\/em>, we know that many of the young men accompanied by Titus became good Salesian priests: but at the time they were boys, even a little undisciplined and whom he sometimes had to scold.
\nToday<\/i><\/em> we know that among the young men followed by Ignaz at Perosa Argentina were a future cardinal (Trochta) and other important figures for the Church: but at the time they were young men crowded into a group that did not shine for their example, among whom some who ran away from the Salesian house without warning, and some who even stole offerings in church.
\nThe effectiveness of a work, therefore, does not necessarily correlate with its efficiency or its immediate \u2018sustainability\u2019.
\nTitus said something that seems beautiful, but in reality is shocking and terrible: \u2018My life will not be wasted, if only one (if at least one)<\/i><\/em> of the boys I accompany becomes a priest\u2019. Just one: that is, one life, one priest, was worth 18 years of terrible physical, psychic, moral and spiritual torture. And he was worth them in abundance.
\nAre we – consecrated or lay people in various ways connected to the Salesian Family – capable of this, even amidst the inevitable external conditioning, expectations and fatigue?<\/p>\n

2.2.<\/b><\/strong> Being companions to young people without taking over their effort to make their choices.<\/b><\/strong>
\nFr Titus spent most of his adult life away from young people: in prisons, he struggled and suffered with peers. Yet his few years of accompanying young people provide valuable insights into how to accompany them. I will briefly recall some of them.
\n– The \u2018young people\u2019 encountered by Tito.<\/i><\/em>
\nFr Titus has been with young people for a few years, but in a variety of contexts:
\n– as an assistant;
\n– as a teacher of science subjects;
\n– as a good sportsman who involved them in games (especially volleyball or table tennis where he was very good);
\n– as a support figure when the young Salesians were forced into hard labour at the P\u00fachov-Nosice dam;
\n– in the Morava crossings to save their priesthood;
\n– as a brother, even though he was on the opposite side of history from them: he, a Salesian priest, was tortured<\/i><\/em> in prison mainly by young or very young agents<\/i><\/em>;
\n– as a suffering witness to the faith, in his later years, when in Vajnory he lived in his brother’s house and was forced to work in the factory, meanwhile becoming a \u2018second father\u2019 to his grandchildren.
\nHe also met people who were less young statistically, but \u2018became young again\u2019 because they were helped to start living again. For example:
\n– the prisoners, often criminals charged with serious crimes or even murderers, whom he met in prison: to them he brought the first announcement of the Christian faith. They were young believers<\/i><\/em> because no one had ever told them about Jesus, but Titus and other priests had the courage to do so, defying the reprisals of the jailers;
\n– his own persecutors, some of whom experience an intense conversion and were therefore \u2018born again from above\u2019, according to the word of the Gospel;
\n– Finally, all those prisoners whom he helped to approach the sacraments (in the prisons, for example, communion was distributed clandestinely while waiting for a medical examination, and in order to agree on time for confessions they resorted to stratagems such as moving the position of their cap or stopping to tie their shoes); and all those other prisoners to whom he gave what he had earned from of his own work, so they could earn food bonuses\u2014so precious for survival and capable of delaying the decline of their strength.
\nWith respect to each of these categories of people, Titus carried out an intense Salesian-style pastoral care, both as a teacher and priest, and again in prison, when he found himself last among the least, like Don Bosco among the prisoners in Turin. Titus is therefore a father who protected, guardeed and nurtured.
\n– \u2018With\u2019 the young, never \u2018in the place\u2019 of the young.<\/i><\/em>
\nDespite the diversity of young people he encountered, one constant stands out in Titus’s approach: he put his life on the line<\/i><\/em> to remain by their side.
\nYet never, not even in the most dramatic situations, did Titus take their place. His support as an educator awakened their consciences and trained their freedom. Never, however, did Titus encourage complacent behaviours, nor did he mislead young people with an overly lenient attitude. Titus knew that a person is educated first and foremost by confronting them with the – sometimes dramatic – consequences of their actions.
\nThus, as a science teacher, he guided the youngsters in reasoning, but left it to them to find the solution.
\nAs a sportsman, he did not allow them to \u2018win easily\u2019, but through the serious side of the game challenged them to learn to be men, to bring out character.
\nAs their support when he joined them at the P\u00fachov-Nosice dam, Titus showed up in plain clothes, evading the vigilance of the guards as they passed through the checkpoints: but he never used his own skill to make them escape.
\nAs the person in charge of the secret crossings over the Morava, Titus did not accept every<\/i><\/em> young man, but only those considered suitable: even if refusing a person meant exposing them to the harshest life under the regime. Furthermore, Titus informed the clerics of the risks they ran – including immediate execution – and imposed on them, individually, to set aside half an hour for prayerful reflection before confirming their participation in the expedition (how nice, if – just as while saying the rosary we remembered those \u201858 grains\u2019 – during the half hour of meditation in the morning, everyone would think that in that time some young men had decided to expose their lives for love of the priesthood and the Church!)
\nIn prison, Titus was the first one ready to help. However, he renounced<\/i><\/em> providing support if it meant coming to terms with the regime. For example: he was punished for helping a prisoner to get hold of a pencil (writing in prison was forbidden); but he courageously reaffirmed his dignity as a priest, even if this caused him transfer or retaliation, resulting in his detachment from the people for whom he had become a point of reference.
\nFr Titus, making his own the awareness that had been Edith Stein’s, herself a martyr of a totalitarian regime, reminds us that \u2018no truth must be accepted that is devoid of love, nor any love that is devoid of truth\u2019. Therefore, he defended the truth even if it meant ceasing to love some people sensitively<\/i><\/em>, because he was separated from them by punishment.
\nWhen on probation, he refused to shake hands with people colluding with the regime: he did not condemn them, but prevented gestures of apparent friendship to make his disagreement with the risky ambiguity in which they lived clear. To love is not to be nice or condescending at any cost!
\nTitus, to the extent that he could, always remained with the young and among the young. However, he never intended to replace them or spoil them in any way. For him, to give his life for the young was first and foremost to help them become responsible protagonists of their own lives. That Titus educated them to the normality of persecution in the history of the Church shows how he loved them without disguising any risk or hardship.
\nToday, many parents, professors and educators believe they upset young people if they expose them too much, if they question their conscience with radical questions. Fr Titus always knew how to challenge young people: but he also stood by them, so that they would not be discouraged. And the young people – contrary to what many educators today would believe – understood Titus and were grateful to him.
\nDo you recall the half-hour meditation in which each one, before leaving for Morava, had to make up his or her mind in complete freedom? Well, no one ever gave up. Everyone always chose to stay with Titus….<\/p>\n

2.3.<\/b><\/strong> Having the courage to say no.<\/b><\/strong> An empowering vocations pastoral ministry<\/b><\/strong>
\nBoth Fr Titus, martyr for the salvation of vocations, and Fr Stuchl\u00fd, formator of the first generation of Czech and Slovak Salesians, were involved in the challenges, beauty and urgencies of pastoral work for vocations.
\nThere is one thing they have in common. They always used discernment and accompanied others in discernment by encouraging
\n– deeds over words,
\n– actions over intentions,
\n– effects over causes
\nalthough they have also knew how to
\n– value the young person’s inner feeling,
\n– be patient with the impatient,
\n– welcome someone back with open arms when, having made a mistake, they recognised their error.
\nTitus had met Fr Bokor, a master in helping him immediately to make truth of the hardships, difficulties and risks of \u2018yes\u2019. Ignaz had been tested by Fr Angel Lubojack\u00fd.
\nFather Ignaz Stuchl\u00fd’s letters to the young men – taken from the Documentary Sources<\/i><\/em> and already commented on – also demonstrate the great firmness of the servant of God in this regard: even a detail that might appear irrelevant to many today – the lack of progress in the Latin performance of an intellectually gifted boy – could become important. Good interpersonal skills, a desire to make the dynamics of the Oratory his own, and \u2018love\u2019 for Don Bosco became empty words if one neglected a small duty and stopped being an example to one’s companions.
\nOn the contrary, those who struggled and needed more time were always followed with particular benevolence and love. Witnesses told of the the moving case of Josef Vand\u00edk, later a Salesian priest, who was then so poor in Latin that he came to despair of his future. Fr Stuchl\u00fd took him to heart and gave him private tuition in his room, until he became one of the best in his class. We find written:<\/p>\n

I remember that I had great difficulty understanding the passive of the Latin verb. When he saw my despondency, he took me with him to his little room; he explained everything to me and encouraged me not to lose faith, but to invoke the Holy Spirit instead. I was consoled was a few lessons ahead of my classmates after a month.<\/p>\n

Stuchl\u00fd was not interested in performance in \u2018absolute terms\u2019 (an evaluation on a purely performance basis was in fact completely alien to him!): but in rectitude of mind, sincerity of heart and constancy of commitment.
\nSo both Titus and Ignaz, paradoxically, accompanied good vocations because they knew how to say \u2018no\u2019 to so many: Titus rejecting them for crossings, Ignaz, for example, sending many back home in the delicate years 1925-1927 in Perosa Argentina.
\nThis is also something to reflect on, in the light of the Synod on Youth, Faith and Vocational Discernment<\/i><\/em>. Listening to young people is fundamental: however, such listening must not degenerate into passivity. The young person asks to be guided, if necessary with firm words and strong decisions. Only then do they understand that adults are serious, that what they believe in and commit their lives to is worthy of faith…: it is no coincidence that some young men, turned away by the Salesians, were willingly readmitted by Fr Stuchl\u00fd because they had understood the errors of the past<\/i><\/em>. But it had been necessary to show them these errors with a certain firmness.<\/p>\n

2.4.<\/b><\/strong> An \u2018extreme\u2019 application of the Preventive System<\/b><\/strong>
\nBoth Titus and Ignaz applied Don Bosco’s Preventive System in an \u2018extreme\u2019 way, so to speak. This system consisted in \u201cputting the young person in the very impossibility of sinning\u201d if that were possible. When, at the height of the 20th century, ideologies were themselves a structure of sin, Stuchl\u00fd sacrificed his life to bring young people physically<\/i><\/em> away from the approaching evil. Fr Stuchl\u00fd encouraged fidelity to the charism even when it was mocked and opposed.
\nBoth understood that young people – thirsty for answers – cannot live without good role models. \u201cTo distance them from evil\u201d then meant \u201cto propose to them a good, indeed every Good, the highest Good\u201d (to use the words of St Francis): for this they both gave their lives. Titus more quickly, dying at only 54 years of age. Fr Stuchl\u00fd by exposing himself to the wear and tear of a long and industrious life in which he was asked to maintain, for the sake of the young, the rhythm of a young man when he was already an old man.
\nThe words with which both are remembered at the time of their death should therefore not come as too much of a surprise.
\nFr Ignaz Stuchl\u00fd is compared to another St John Mary Vianney and the prophet Elijah, whose spirit is now invoked on the Salesians. At Fr Titus\u2019 funeral, Fr Andrej Dermek said,<\/p>\n

It is possible to say that everything between his first Mass and his funeral was full of priestly, religious and Salesian life! […] I think I can proclaim on your behalf, dear Titus, that you did not reject this destiny of yours, you were not afraid of it, you were not displeased with it! You accepted it with submission, in peace and joy. Who knows what with your untimely death you redeem us! There is one more thing I have to say in this place and at this time: what you undertook was not an adventure, it was not recklessness nor was it a desire for hype. It was o nly love for souls. You never betrayed your people, not even when you were judged and condemned. Do not be afraid, dear Titus. Your priesthood does not end today, but continues in the priesthood of those for whom you made it possible to become priests. A few dozen Salesian priests thank you for their priesthood. They are scattered all over the world. And the tree must die out so that the shoots may blossom […] and that tree was you, Titus.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Tito Zeman (1915-1969), a Slovak Salesian, lived his priestly vocation with evangelical radicalism right…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":45876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":21,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[2627,1817,2185,1877,1841,1967,2628,1955,2615],"class_list":["post-45883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-saints","tag-god","tag-grace","tag-jesus","tag-martyrs","tag-our-heroes","tag-saints","tag-salesian-charism","tag-salesians","tag-witnesses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45890,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45883\/revisions\/45890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donbosco.press\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}