Alfons Maria Mazurek

Blessed Alfons Maria of the Holy Spirit OCD
Martyr
Born	Józef Mazurek (1882-01-26)26 January 1882 Baranówka, Lubelskie, Poland
Died	18 August 1944(1944-08-18) (aged 62) Nawojowa Góra, Małopolskie, Poland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	13 June 1999, Warsaw by Pope John Paul II
Feast	28 August

Alfons Maria Mazurek, also known as Alfons Maria of the Holy Spirit (1891–1944) was a Polish Discalced Carmelite friar and priest. He was shot by the Gestapo. He is one of the 108 Martyrs of World War II.

Biography

Józef Mazurek was born to Wojciech and Marianna (née Goździów) Mazurek. After graduating from the local grammar school and the Small Seminary of the Discalced Carmelites in Wadowice, in 1908 he entered the Dicalced Carmelites' novitiate in Czerna, taking the name of Alfons Maria of the Holy Spirit. He studied theology and philosophy in Krakow, Linz, and Vienna, and there in the cathedral of St. Stephen, on July 16, 1916, he was ordained.

Mazurek was a professor and rector of the Carmelite seminary and director of the tertiaries at the monastery in Wadowice. In 1930 he was elected prior of the convent in Czerna. In 1936, he became the first visitor of the Carmelite communities in Poland; he wrote new statutes for them in 1937. He also left in elaborate hymns in manuscript form (he is the author of Tam in the Silence of the Blue Forests). He prepared for publication a breviary for Carmelite tertiaries and retreat texts written by the Carmelite Fr. Marcin Rubczyński. Mazurek also published articles in the pages of Głos Karmelu ("The Voice of Carmel").

Separated from the friars and residents of Czerna, who had been forced to work on the town's fortifications, Mazurek died on August 28, 1944, shot by an SS soldier.

He was beatified by John Paul II on June 13, 1999 along with a group of other Polish martyrs of the Second World War. The relics of Blessed Alfonso are in the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Wadowice.