International Hunger Strike Grows, Joined By Palestinian Captive of the George Floyd Rebellion

Take action in support of the hunger strikers here.

Three western political prisoners are now on hunger strike.

As of 6 September 2025, T, one of the Filton 24, is on Day 27 of her hunger strike in protest of HMP Peterborough’s unfair treatment of her as a “terrorist.” Across the ocean in California, captive from the student intifada Casey Goonan is on Day 11 of a strike in solidarity with T, and yesterday, when he learned about the now-international strike, Palestinian captive from the 2020 George Floyd Rebellion Malik Farrad Muhammad declared he was beginning another strike from the state of Oregon:

“Gaza is a prison. It is a living hell. They are starved. And [we as prisoners in the US] are disappeared and invisibilized. But we will not and should not be silent as our siblings suffer. If the international community won’t act, we should. Prisoners everywhere should not eat as long as Gazans starve. While the international community allows for forced apartheid in the West Bank, as they remain unphased by hundreds of thousands of deaths, unshaken by millions of people displaced, then let them witness prisoners all over the world starve with them.”

T’s supporters said she felt “humbled and deeply grateful” for the international support, including protests for her this week in Belgium, New York City, and Kuala Lumpur outside British embassies and consulates — “solidarity in action, not words,” as Casey said. Casey and Malik are joining Hoxha until her last remaining demand, written confirmation of the reinstatement of her job in the prison library, is met. The building pressure on HMP Peterborough and Sodexo, its private operator, has forced them to meet all T’s other demands.

But on Day 26, despite previous verbal confirmation of the reinstatement of her job, T received a letter from Sodexo, refusing her right to work, claiming the library job is “not appropriate” for her due to Palestine Action being illegitimately proscribed as a “terrorist group” by the Home Secretary. Sodexo is retrospectively applying proscription to punish T for a crime she has not yet been convicted of, and a group she has not been proven to be part of, which, at the time of her arrest, was yet not a proscribed group. T’s supporters note that she has previously worked in the library with no issues, but these new measures have been put in place by the prison’s “Joint Terrorism Extremism Unit” called “JEXU,” described by its founders as a unit creating “prisons within prisons.” Sam Gyimah, the former Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation, who launched the unit, spoke proudly of his collaboration with the zionist entity as a strategic priority, and “Israel’s track record,” especially in “disruptive technologies,” as inspiration.

T’s supporters’ latest medical update indicated “T is very fatigued and, yesterday, reported blurry vision. Speaking is even more difficult than before. Her head is spinning, and her ketone levels had hit a record high. The prison has clearly felt the pressure — only now have they offered her a lift pass to move around and a temporary transfer to a downstairs cell to avoid the stairs. They are doing everything but what they should: transfer her to a hospital now.” The prison neglected to give T proper medical check-ups or electrolytes until Day 18 of her strike, dangerously late, and have yet to hospitalize her despite the growing demands.

As a diabetic, Casey has had to stop taking their insulin every day during the strike, which could be especially risky, but Casey’s support team shared they are “staying positive, and as of yet there haven’t been any serious complications with their health. They want to thank everyone for giving their attention to T Hoxha’s situation and taking action.” The ask is now for supporters to call local UK embassies and pressure them to contact the UK Ministry of Justice, in addition to keeping up calls to HMP Peterborough, and spreading the story as far as possible across the world.

Who is Malik Muhammad? The Long Shadow of the George Floyd Rebellion

Malik, the latest political prisoner joining the strike, is a Black Palestinian Muslim anarchist who participated in armed action against the racist Amerikan police during the 2020 uprising. He pled guilty to 14 felonies and received a 10-year prison sentence in 2022, the harshest federal sentence of any 2020 protestor. He is also a veteran of the US Army and “designated 100 percent disabled as a combat veteran because of extreme PTSD,” according to his lawyer. He mentions this openly on his blog: “I was a tanker in the army — and no, I’m not proud that I was part of the murder machine, so don’t thank me for my service.”

Inside Oregon’s Snake River Correctional Institution, Malik is no stranger to targeted political repression, isolation from other inmates, or hunger strikes. He spent all of 2024 and already eight-and-counting months of 2025 in segregation in a solitary cell without fresh air, recreation or socialization. He was “punished” for reasons like refusing water during his Ramadan fast. Guards violently tased him, shot him with firing darts, and kicked and punched him for speaking out against their racism. In November of 2024, Malik went on hunger strike and successfully won demands to have his property returned to him and to be released into general population. Malik wrote:

“I hoped to highlight the brutality of ODOC’s predatory, horrendous hole problems and practices. I have reached out and I have wrote, I filed grievances, sent letters to the Inspector General…They say the hole is where they put the worst of the worst “criminals”, but what they don’t say is that’s where they put the worst of the worst CO’s too. The ones who can’t work elsewhere because of their lack of respect, professionalism, decorum, and constant antagonizing of inmates.”

Despite this torture, Malik has never stopped politicizing his fellow captives, sharing his writing with the outside world (including on his blog and a forthcoming book of poems), and organizing for improved conditions, while never abandoning the ultimate goal of total revolution. He has also written extensively about Palestinian liberation and its ties to the Black prisoners’ movement in Amerika.

Some excerpts of Malik’s writing from April 2024:

“Mujahadeen, “muslim soldier”, that’s what I am, that’s the cloth I’m cut from…Blockade the ports, don’t ship Israel shit we need to shut shit down like we did for Floyd, because like Floyd, these are our brother and our sisters, our sons and our daughters…”

“I envy your opportunity to do those things, there wouldn’t be a soul on earth that could stop me going. I’d spend my last, I’d risk it all, I have an immense love for my homeland, but a more intense love for freedom from oppression and a great disdain for the oppressors. Do anything and everything that can be done to aid the cause, because it’s worthy, and don’t let anyone stop you.”

Last month, in the tradition of the martyrs George Jackson and Jonathan Jackson, Malik “participated in Black August gatherings where Black prisoners would complete their daily exercise challenge together and share meals,” telling the outside that he and his siblings inside “always say it shouldn’t be Black August for just one month, it should be Black August every day of the year.”

In my last piece on this strike, I discussed the abandonment of political prisoners in Amerika compared to Palestine, particularly the prisoners of this latest phase of the Palestine “solidarity” movement in the West, like Casey Goonan, Elias Rodriguez, Tarek Bazrouk, Jakhi McCray, and Mohamed Sabry Soliman. The political prisoners of the George Floyd Rebellion were similarly abandoned, and the historic militancy of that rebellion neutralized and erased through counterinsurgency, co-opted by NGOs and politicians, not unlike the process of internal counterinsurgency that has been taking place within the Palestine “solidarity” movement. “A militant nationwide uprising did in fact occur. The progressive wing of the counter-insurgency seeks the denial and disarticulation of this event,” to quote Idris Robinson in How It Might Should Be Done, one of the best retrospectives of 2020. Most people in our movements have never heard of Malik and he is still one of the best known of the 2020 prisoners, who can all be found and supported at uprisingsupport.org. Glory to our prisoners and glory to the Resistance.

Take action in support of the hunger strikers here. Follow instagram.com/prisoners4palestine and x.com/Workshops4Gaza for updates.

Stay updated with Casey’s case and their upcoming sentencing at freecaseynow.noblogs.org/.

Write to Malik and send him a book from his wish list:

Malik Muhammad
#23935744
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914-8335

Source: Calla Walsh Substack

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21286

#23935744 #CaseyGoonan #malikMuhammad #northAmerica #palestine #politicalPrisoner #repression #resistance #Solidarity #tHoxha #uk

'Filton 24 hunger striker tells the Canary government is monitoring her under counter extremism. Because of the government’s abuse of counter-terrorism powers, Teuta Hoxha from the Palestine Action Filton 24, has been held in prison without trial for the last nine months, and has been on hunger strike since 11 August as a protest against the denial of her basic rights.'
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2025/09/01/filton-24-prisoner/?__s=2ouzu90zefy2xseef5bw
#uk #politicalprisoner #palestine
Filton 24 hunger striker tells the Canary government is monitoring her under counter extremism

T from the Filton 24 is on hunger strike but was told by officers it's not worth it because 'the prison doesn’t care what happens to you'

Canary

Urgent Press Conference Today at 6pm ET!

#PoliticalPrisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is at risk of permanent blindness. Please share the link [1] to invite others to register for this virtual press conference, and read more at our blog [2].

--
[1] https://tinyurl.com/mumia-eyesight
[2] https://pabc.io/mumia-eyesight

US Political Prisoner Casey Goonan on Hunger Strike in Solidarity With Pal Action Prisoner T. Hoxha

Today I learned about T Hoxha, a Pal Action prisoner in the UK who is on day 16 of their hunger strike at HMP Peterborough. As of 4pm eastern time, August 26, 2025, 2 out of 3 of her demands have been met, but she is still on strike to demand that the prison release the mail they have been withholding from her.

As captives imprisoned for our participation in the Palestinian liberation movement in the west, we have a responsibility to each other across borders to pursue our lives in prison with the same steadfastness as the Palestinian Prisoners movement held captive in ‘Israeli’ prisons.

The states we have been captured by are the enablers of the Zionist entity’s accelerated genocide of Palestinians, as well as the ongoing genocides of black and indigenous people who’s lands they continue to occupy.

As the Western left continues to move from crisis to crisis, avoiding their responsibilities to Palestine, we are all that we have. By we I am referring to people facing repression for their support for Palestine, the people who are truly sacrificing. Such as T Hoxha, who has suffered through 16 days of starvation just to get her mail.

The Palestine solidarity movement in the west cannot abandon people like her who have risked
their lives and continue to do so in resistance to the intolerable condition of genocide.

As of today one of my cellmates and I are on hunger strike at Santa Rita jail until her demands are met.

Solidarity with T Hoxha and all prisoners of the Palestine Solidarity movement!

Raze the walls!
Liberate all prisoners of the settler empire!
Casey Goonan

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21116

#CaseyGoonan #hungerStrike #palestine #palestineAction #politicalPrisoner #Solidarity #tHoxha

PFLP Secretary-General Subjected to Harsh Teatment in Megiddo Prison

Ahmad Saadat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is reportedly suffering under extremely harsh detention conditions in Megiddo Prison. His daughter, Samoud Saadat, stated that her father has been placed in prolonged isolation under inhumane conditions that have worsened since the beginning of the Zionist war on Gaza. During her last visit two weeks ago, she noted a severe drop in his weight due to inadequate food and total isolation inside a small cell.

According to Samoud, Ahmad Saadat remains isolated 24 hours a day and is subjected to repeated assaults by special units, extensive searches, threats, and ongoing verbal and physical abuse by jailers. She also highlighted deliberate restrictions placed on lawyer visits, describing the situation as part of a systematic campaign targeting her father and his symbolic status.

Abuse and violations inside Megiddo prison

Reports from the Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs describe systematic violations inside Megiddo Prison. These include starvation policies, the spread of skin diseases such as scabies, physical assaults, denial of medical treatment, and restrictions on family visits.

Child detainees in the facility are subjected to degrading and abusive treatment, according to the Commission. During visits, they are brought in with hands and feet shackled, eyes blindfolded, and heads covered with black bags. Even while speaking with their families through the phone, their hands remain tied, preventing them from holding the receiver properly. Legal teams have repeatedly demanded that the shackles be removed during visits, but prison authorities have refused.

Administrative detainee Ahmad Tazzaz’a martyred in detention

On August 3, 2025, 20-year-old administrative detainee Ahmad Sa’id Salih Tazzaz’a from Jenin was declared martyred inside Megiddo Prison. He had been detained since May 6, 2025.

With Tazzaz’a’s death, the number of Palestinian prisoners martyred since the beginning of the ongoing genocide stands at 76, according to documented reports. These figures highlight a brutal escalation in prisoner deaths, with a total of 313 prisoners martyred since 1967. The spread of infectious diseases like scabies has become a method of slow execution, especially in Megiddo Prison.

Ben-Gvir’s provocations and psychological warfare

This follows Zionist Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s public confrontation of prominent Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti in his cell a few days ago. In a video released on August 15, 2025, Ben-Gvir was seen threatening Barghouti directly, stating: “Anyone who harms the people of Israel… we will eliminate them.” Barghouti appeared visibly weakened, pale, and emaciated. His family was shocked by his condition, with his wife describing him as “so thin” and almost unrecognizable.

Days later, on August 20, Ben-Gvir ordered the installation of large black-and-white images depicting the destruction of Gaza across prison walls. During a visit to one of the facilities, he pointed at the images and declared: “This is what they should see every morning on their way to the prison yard… This is how it’s supposed to look.”

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=20980

#gaza #palestine #pflp #politicalPrisoner #repression #resistance #westAsia

@ocg
A Sister standing strong. Good for her. Proud to stand with Nicole Collier, (D) #TX State Rep. She is being held as a political hostage.
Don't Stand Down

#TX #Abbott #ImpeachKenPaxton #politicalPrisoner #NicoleCollier

Update on the Court Decision of Anarchist Andreas F: Athens, Greece

On Friday 18/7, the court ended the “Revenge Conspiracy” case in which the anarchist comrade Andreas Floros was on trial. After the prosecutor’s acquittal, the court unanimously declared the comrade innocent due to doubt concerning membership and with no doubts at all on any other charges, and Andreas was released from Korydallos prison a few hours later.

Over 70 people were gathered in solidarity inside and outside the courtroom, which was tightly cordoned off by all the special forces of the police, breaking the deafening silence of every kind of court with slogans of solidarity, standing by Andreas and every persecuted person.

The acquittal comes after 15 months of being held hostage in Amfissa and Korydallos prisons for Andreas, who from the first moment of his arrest denied any charges in the otherwise bleak scenario of the anti-terrorism. Once again, it was proven that the anti-terrorism, relying on the legislative framework of 187A, is organizing persecutions against anarchists and individuals in struggle. In this way, they have repeatedly attempted to spread fear around anyone who dares to question and stand against the dominant dictates of the exploitation system.

In a case with many parameters that had to be taken into account by the world of solidarity, we witnessed vengeful methods, not only against our comrade but also against the other defendants in the case aimed at supporting the anti-terrorist scenario and ultimately imposing exhaustive sentences on most of them. In a court in which any coherent evidence leading to the support of 187A was not even supplied by the very service that had led to the prosecution, the terrorist once again became the Trojan horse so that the scenarios and methods of the state and the MME could be validated .

Thus, those accused and convicted under 187A, received long-term sentences in the first instance, starting from 15 years and reaching 37 years (estimated 20) for the anarchist Fotis Tziotzis, who, although he was imprisoned during the time the actions of the indictment took place, was convicted of “moral instigation” for all the actions and for “direction” of the organization. At the same time, no mitigating circumstances were recognized, even for the accused who “fell” under 187A.

In the face of this entire horror-narrative, for 15 months now comrade Andreas has maintained a consistent militant stance throughout the condition of confinement. He published texts both on his case and on broader social/class issues and participated in several events by telephone. Furthermore, a solidarity movement was set up with dozens of events and actions in several cities. The solidarity movement succeeded in reversing the terror regime that the police had tried to impose, especially in the city of Patras. The world of struggle found itself on the streets and stood against repression in an era of accelerating state violence and an imposed modern totalitarianism.

Andreas’s case encapsulates all the vengeful fury of the state and the police against those who unwaveringly stand by the oppressed and exploited, on the side of those at the bottom of this world.
To those who do not tolerate repression, fascism, sexism, war, death and poverty. To those who fight for a world of freedom, equality and solidarity.

Self-organized – Unmediated – Unyielding struggles against repression, state manipulations and fear

Solidarity opens paths to freedom

We have a whole world to win – We have a lifetime to try

Solidarity assembly for anarchist comrade Andreas Floros (Athens,Patras)

Translated by Act for freedom now!

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=20792

#anarchism #europe #greece #politicalPrisoner #repression

Georges Abdallah: The Long Road Home from a Prison of Principle

On the morning of July 25, 2025, Beirut welcomed home one of its most steadfast sons. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a name long etched into the annals of revolutionary resistance, stepped foot on Lebanese soil for the first time in over four decades. Greeted by roaring crowds at Beirut International Airport and along the highway to his hometown of Qobayat, the 73-year-old former political prisoner was received not merely as a man returning from exile, but as a symbol of unbroken resistance and unwavering conviction.

Abdallah emerged from a French prison after 41 years of incarceration—most of which was served beyond his original sentence. In his first public address, delivered defiantly upon his return, Abdallah saluted the martyrs of the resistance and reaffirmed his belief in the justice of the cause he never abandoned. “My greetings to the resistance,” he declared to thousands gathered in solidarity. “To its martyrs, and its Dahiyeh.” With Gaza burning and regional powers paralyzed, Abdallah’s words were a sharp rebuke to Arab complacency and a reminder that resistance remains, in his eyes, both necessary and sacred.

“Resistance is freedom, and we must rally around it”. He affirmed to local TV channels while surrounded by throngs of his countrymen and women.

Now, after more than four decades behind bars, Georges Abdallah’s return does not mark the end of his political journey—it marks its renewal. In his eyes, the resistance lives, the struggle endures, and the martyrs speak louder than treaties or silence. For a generation witnessing a renewed era of confrontation—from Gaza to the refugee camps of Lebanon—his story is both an indictment and an invitation: to resist, to remember, and to remain unbroken.

Chained for Palestine

Born in 1951 in the northern Lebanese town of Qobayat, Georges Abdallah’s political journey began in the midst of Lebanon’s own civil strife and deepened through the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation. A committed Marxist and member of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), he was arrested in Lyon in 1984 and later convicted for his alleged involvement in the assassinations of a U.S. military attaché and an Israeli diplomat in Paris—acts carried out in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli role in Lebanon and Palestine.

Abdallah had previously fought alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and later helped form LARF—an underground faction rooted in anti-imperialist ideology and solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Operating across borders during a period when Israeli invasions and American interventions had turned Lebanon into a regional battlefield, Abdallah’s work focused on building alliances between Arab and European militant movements. His vision of resistance extended beyond national borders; he viewed the struggle against Zionism, Western imperialism, and global capitalism as interconnected fronts of the same battle.

Under his guidance, LARF was not simply a military outfit but an ideological project. The group’s communiqués—ghostwritten in safehouses scattered between Beirut and Paris—spoke of the need for a united international front against colonial domination. Abdallah believed armed resistance, when directed against military and intelligence targets of occupying powers, was a necessary response to decades of Western-backed aggression in the Arab world. It was this worldview that would eventually land him in a French courtroom and cement his fate as one of the longest-held political prisoners in Europe.

Though the charges against him were based on contested evidence and a deeply politicized trial, the real threat Abdallah posed—at least in the eyes of Washington and Tel Aviv—was ideological. He represented a militant, organized form of Arab dignity that refused to separate justice from resistance or occupation from consequence. His sentencing became a statement, not only about France’s alignment with U.S. and Israeli policy, but about how far Western states were willing to go to criminalize solidarity with Palestine.

Though Abdallah became eligible for release as early as 1999, successive French governments—under U.S. and Israeli pressure—blocked every legal attempt at freedom. Judges ruled for his release multiple times, but those rulings were overruled or left unimplemented by political authorities. He became not only a prisoner of the French state, but of a global political order that demanded his silence and feared the message his liberty would send.

That fear was palpable even in his final moments in France. Authorities released him a day ahead of schedule and barred him from issuing any public statements before his deportation. Yet despite every attempt to quiet his voice, Georges Abdallah returned home to the thunder of chants, the waving of Palestinian and Lebanese flags, and a sea of faces welcoming not just a man, but a struggle made flesh.

Speaking to Al-Mayadeen, Ibrahim al-Halabi, a longtime member of the international campaign for Abdallah’s release, called the day “a great victory for freedoms—not only for George and Lebanon, but for everyone who has fought for justice.” Indeed, Abdallah’s cause has galvanized global support in recent years, from trade unions in Europe to resistance groups across the Middle East. His continued imprisonment had become a glaring contradiction in France’s professed commitment to human rights and judicial independence.

Forty-One Years of Iron and Silence

Georges Abdallah entered the French prison system in 1984 as a defiant revolutionary and emerged in 2025 with the same convictions intact. But those forty-one years behind bars were not without cost. Locked away in Lannemezan prison in southern France—a facility known for housing high-security inmates—Abdallah spent decades in near-total isolation, denied parole repeatedly despite fulfilling all legal conditions for release as early as 1999. The prison authorities imposed strict communication restrictions, curtailed visits, and often censored his political writings. Yet through it all, Abdallah refused any compromise, rejecting every conditional release that required renouncing his principles or expressing remorse.

He read voraciously. He wrote letters to comrades around the world. And year after year, he signed his statements from “within the belly of the beast,” reaffirming his solidarity with Palestine and the broader struggle against imperialism. In one of his rare public writings, he described the prison not as a grave, but as a “frontline of struggle” where dignity was a daily act of resistance. That posture, however, came at the cost of aging far from home, enduring solitary winters, and missing the lives of loved ones as time took its toll.

Back in Qobayat, his family bore the quiet weight of his absence. Georges’ mother died while he was still imprisoned; his brothers and nieces grew up attending marches and vigils instead of homecomings and celebrations. Their visits to France were rare and tightly monitored. And yet, they stood firm—his family becoming, over time, an extension of the resistance he embodied. In Lebanon, his small mountain town turned into a symbol of international defiance. His portrait hung from balconies, and every anniversary of his arrest sparked renewed calls for justice.

Outside prison walls, an unrelenting campaign for his release grew stronger with each passing year. What began as a modest effort by a few Lebanese and Palestinian activists gradually transformed into a transnational movement of unions, human rights defenders, student groups, and former political prisoners. In France, protesters rallied annually outside Lannemezan. Banners reading “Libérez Georges Abdallah” became fixtures of leftist marches from Paris to Marseille. Across the Mediterranean, murals of Abdallah adorned refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza, and Tunisia. While the French state sought to bury him in obscurity, the global protest movement resurrected him in image and idea—making him not just a prisoner, but a living symbol of resistance unbent by time or steel.

The Return of a Revolutionary

When Georges Abdallah emerged from the airport terminal in Beirut, the crowd surged forward not to greet a man, but to embrace an idea. For many, his return was the homecoming of a revolutionary who had long ceased to belong to any one town or border. Qobayat’s son had become, through four decades of principled captivity, the embodiment of steadfastness in the face of imperial power. The chants that echoed from the airport road to the northern mountains were not simply of joy—they were declarations of continuity. That resistance does not retire. That dignity is not negotiable. That Lebanon still births men who choose prison over submission, silence, or shame.

In his first public words on Lebanese soil, Abdallah spoke not of vengeance or despair, but of fidelity. “Resistance is freedom,” he proclaimed to the people gathered under the July sun. “And we must rally around it.” He saluted the martyrs of the resistance, bowed to Gaza’s steadfastness, and reminded a region still shackled by fear and fragmentation that its future will not be written by normalization, but by struggle. At a time when Arab regimes race to court Tel Aviv and Western capitals escalate their war on the very notion of armed defiance, Abdallah’s words landed like a challenge to the prevailing order.

His return coincides with a renewed political assault on Lebanon’s resistance movements. International pressure mounts against Hezbollah and its weapons, while local elites echo calls for disarmament under the pretense of sovereignty. But sovereignty, Abdallah’s life reminds us, is not measured by rhetorical appeals to statehood—it is measured by the people’s right to defend themselves against occupation, aggression, and domination. For Abdallah, the rifle of the resistance was never an aberration of law, but an assertion of justice. The prison bars that confined him were not stronger than the principle they tried to contain.

In an age where resistance is slandered as terror, and loyalty is traded for favor in foreign halls of power, Georges Abdallah returned not only as a free man—but as a reminder that freedom begins where subjugation ends. His legacy is not merely behind him; it marches now beside him, on the shoulders of a generation still defying siege in Gaza, drones in Beirut, and sanctions in Damascus. His walk through the airport was not a retreat into old history—it was the entry of a revolutionary back into the world he never truly left.

Hussein Moghniyeh
source: Al Manar

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=20628

#France #georgesAbdallah #lebanon #politicalPrisoner

Quote of the day, 27 July: St. Titus Brandsma

A new awareness of Thy love
Encompasses my heart:
Sweet Jesus, I in Thee and Thou
In me shall never part.

No grief shall fall my way but I
Shall see thy grief-filled eyes;
The lovely way that Thou once walked
Has made me sorrow-wise.

All trouble is a white-lit joy
That lights my darkest day;
Thy love has turned to brightest light
This night-like way.

If I have Thee alone,
The hours will bless
With still, cold hands of love
My utter loneliness.

Stay with me, Jesus, only stay;
I shall not fear
If, reaching out my hand,
I feel Thee near.

Saint Titus Brandsma

Before a Picture of Jesus in My Cell, trans. Gervase Toelle, O.Carm.
12–13 February 1942 in Scheveningen Prison, The Hague

Catholic Church 1993, Proper of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and the Order of Discalced Carmelites (Rev. and augm.), Institutum Carmelitanum, Rome.

Featured image: This is the cell St. Teresa occupied when she was the prioress at the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila (1571–1574). Image credit: Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. / Flickr (Some rights reserved).

#FrGervaseToelleOCarm #martyr #poetry #politicalPrisoner #StTitusBrandsma