Over Franz Wasner and Maria Theresia Ledochowska (Source: wikipedia):
Franz Mathias Wasner (*28. December 1905 in Feldkirchen near Mattighofen; † 21. June 1992 in Salzburg) was a Roman Catholic theologian who worked as artistic director of the Trapp Family Singers and as a missionary.
Franz Wasner was ordained a priest in 1929 by Archbishop Ignatius Rieder. He then studied canon law in Rome, where he also obtained a doctorate. While studying in Rome, he lived in the priests' college of the Pontifical Institute of Santa Maria dell'Anima.
He was able to demonstrate his musical talent in Georg von Trapp's villa in Aigen near Salzburg and subsequently accompanied the Trapp family into emigration after the occupation of Austria by the German Wehrmacht and was also the family's spiritual support. The Trapp Family Singers' repertoire of over 150 pieces was mostly arranged by Franz Wasner. He conducted the singers during the concerts. He contributed significantly to the Trapps' professional profile, as his priestly clothing in numerous appearances clearly demonstrated the Trapps' Austrian-Catholic sympathies. Maria Trapp often ended a concert by introducing Wasner as "our spiritual counselor, musical leader, and very good friend, Father Franz Wasner."
After the world-famous choir disbanded in 1956, Wasner went to the Fiji Islands as a missionary. He then served as rector of the Pontifical Institute of Santa Maria dell' Anima in Rome from 1967 to 1981, where his estate is also in the archives.
In 1972 he became a member of the Salzburg Cathedral Chapter and composed other pieces of music.
His home community of Feldkirchen near Mattighofen made him an honorary citizen. Franz Wasner is in the crypt of the Salzburg Cathedral Chapter in the Petersfriedhof Salzburg (crypt no. 52) buried.
Maria Theresia Ledochowska (*29. April 1863 in Loosdorf, Lower Austria; † 6. July 1922 in Rome), also known under the pseudonyms Alexander Halka and Afrikanus, was a Catholic order founder and missionary.
Life: She was born as the daughter of Count Anton Ledóchowski and his wife Josephine, née Countess von Salis-Zizers, and grew up in Lower Austria. Her brother Vladimir Ledóchowski became Superior General of the Society of Jesus; her sister Maria Ursula Ledóchowska also founded an order and was canonized. Her second uncle was Cardinal MieczysLaw Halka Ledochowski. Maria Theresia attended the English Misses' School in St. Pölten. Due to the loss of a large part of the family wealth and the “disfigurement” of her face due to smallpox scars, a befitting marriage became a long way off.
From 1885 to 1891 she worked as a lady-in-waiting at the court of Ferdinand IV. of Tuscany in the Tuscany wing of Salzburg's old town (today a university building) and accompanied the Grand Duchess to the theater and on extensive travels in Europe. During this time she decided to work to free slaves in Africa. The decisive factor for this was a meeting in 1889 with Cardinal Lavigerie, the founder of the White Fathers and primate for all of Africa since 1884. She was accompanied by her confessor, the Jesuit Viktor Kolb.
When she set about her missionary work with determination, she was still at court and therefore had to use a pen name as a writer.
On a Sunday afternoon, the 19th In July 1891, she was attacked by a man near Kalksburg and experienced “the most terrible moments of my life”. After a long period of shock, she continued her decision and began the work in a small apartment in the Riedenburg district of Salzburg, which would soon spread to dozens of branches.
In 1905 she moved to Rome to head the Generalate of Sodality. Her physical strength weakened more and more. She died on the 6th. July 1922; A few hours later, her brother, Jesuit general Vladimir Ledóchoswki, rushed to the sisters' house and celebrated Holy Mass there. Fair. Maria Theresia Ledóchowska was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico. Her successor was Maria Julia von Falkenhayn (1865–1956), a daughter of Franz von Falkenhayn.
Founding of the Petrus Claver Sodality: In 1888, at the age of 25, she joined an interdenominational anti-slavery association that had recently been founded in Salzburg. In 1894 she founded a Catholic association to combat slavery in Africa, the “St. Peter Claver Sodality for the African Missions”, which was recognized as a religious order by the Vatican in 1897. In 1910, Pope Pius X approved the association's statutes. The members opened printing presses to distribute religious writings; Maria Theresia wrote a series of plays about slavery in Africa. The magazine Echo from Africa was a focus of her media apostolate, was published at times in nine languages and has been published to this day without interruption since the first volume in 1889. After II. Vatican Council expanded their congregation, today the “Missionary Sisters of St. “Petrus Claver” also carried out its activities for the benefit of evangelism in other continents.
The founder on the mission of sodality: She did not see the missionary aid organization as an organization to collect donations for Africa, but as an instrument to awaken a new consciousness among European Catholics. She was ashamed that Protestants at the time donated more to missions than Catholics, and attributed this discrepancy to a lack of understanding among Catholics of the urgency of missions: “We put propaganda at the forefront, far ahead of money.” With this in mind, she founded several magazines, gave lectures, wrote plays[9] and organized information events, some lasting several days, in which thousands upon thousands took part, initially in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. She was sharply attacked by the anti-clerical camp for her journalistic work. A Baden journalist accused her of setting up “a central office for the clerical stupidity of the people” near Salzburg in 1898.
Echo from Africa:The mission achieved particular fame through the magazine Echo aus Afrika, founded in 1889. The magazines conveyed an image of Africa to an Austrian readership, not least through photographs. The reports were almost exclusively written by Europeans. The fourth year was praised in the Benedictine magazine Studies and Communications because it fought to “revive interest in Africa”. At that time, the Echo magazines contained original letters from African missionaries, book reviews, notes from and about Africa, illustrations, donation overviews and letters to the editor. The third Austrian Catholic Day in Linz in 1892 declared the Echo the “organ of the African movement in Austria” and called for subscriptions. The price was considered “unprecedentedly low”. In 1900 Ledóchowska reported that the magazine was published in five languages and had a circulation of 25,000.
In 1897, the Countess bought an estate from the Lieferingen missionaries in Lengfelden near Salzburg, where she built the Maria Sorg mission house. The following year the Sodality set up a printing press there; The fact that the printing license was awarded to a woman (after three applications) sparked considerable controversy in Salzburg. In a letter to the editor, Ledóchowska wrote of a “hatred of my personality, of the Sodality I founded and of our printing press.” She claimed that the outcry was actually a hatred of an “eminently Catholic, even apostolic company.”
She advocated for improvements to fire protection locally. In 1912 she served as godmother of the 1st Flag of the Lengfelden Volunteer Fire Department, for the 10th. be the founding anniversary; the function was a recognition of their financial support to the fire department. She declined due to commitments in Rome.
Call of holiness, beatification: In 1975 she was - together with Arnold Janssen, Josef Freinademetz and Eugen von Mazenod - on World Mission Sunday in Rome by Pope Paul VI. beatified. Her remains were transferred to a chapel in the Generalate of the Congregation. Her memorial day is the 6th. July.
Maria Theresa's sister, Maria Ursula Ledóchowska, was canonized in 2003; her brother Wladimir Ledóchowski was general of the Jesuits from 1915 to 1942. Another brother was the Polish officer Ignacy Kazimierz Ledóchowski, known as the “Holy General,” who died in a concentration camp in 1945.
Ledóchowska was a Star Cross nun.
Writing activity (selected)
Playwright: According to Helga Kraft, Ledóchowska has written more than seven plays, Brewer writes at least nine. Some of them are recorded under the pseudonyms Afrikanus or Halka.
Saint Odilia (Vienna, 1884)
Zaida, the Negro Girl (Vienna, 1889)[22]
St. Aloysius Watches (Vienna, 1891)
The Homeless (1901)
The slave's scapular (Salzburg, 1901; 2. edition 1917)
King Ludwig the Saint (1906)
The Wine Basket (Salzburg, 1907)
Baroness Mizzi (Salzburg, 1907; 2. edition 1908)
Maria's Doves – Mission Game (Salzburg, 1911)
From Hut to Hut (Salzburg, 1912)
Princess of Uganda (Salzburg, 1912; 2. edition 1915)
In 2023, a music-dance-reading performance by the Salzburg Philharmonic under the direction of Elisabeth fuchs was performed in the Salzburg Kollegienkirche.
Editor
Small Africa Library (1894–1939)
Editor of Echo from Africa (1889 ff.)
Editor of Das Negerkind – Illustrated Monthly for Children (1912 ff.); later you and the mission
Editor of Africa for Christ, later Catholic Mission Propaganda: Monthly paper for the awakening and deepening of the mission idea (1914 ff.)