His Life
Edward Poppe was born in Temse (Belgium) on December 18th, 1890 in a baker’s family. Poppe realised that his careless childhood was an important factor in burgeon of his vocation to the priesthood. When he was studying at the Catholic University of Leuven he wrote in his dairy: “It pleases me to remember my childhood without cares, full of sunshine and joy” (February 19th, 1911)
From his sober, deeply Christian mother he had not only the natural sense for prayer and a good heart; also he inherited the urge of clear agreements and firm approach. In his father he admired his strength and hard work and his love for the common man. In the evening mother recited the Rosary, followed by the litany of Our Lady and the many intentions for the living and the death.
Edward grew up in a large family; he went to school kept by the Sisters of Saint Vincent and the Brothers of Charity. He was excelled by his critical and practical sense, his independent opinion and perseverance. He shared in grieves of the ordinary people in Flanders, which he deeply loved.
Seminary
In May 1909 Edward Poppe, a talented student, decided to become a diocesan priest in order to serve ‘poor Flanders’ which at home and through the youth movement he became to know and to love. Already as a seminarian (1910-1916) he cherished the intense desire to fulfil God’s Will as perfectly possible. After the example of Jesus and Mary and open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he followed in the footsteps of his favourite saints.
On May 1st, 1916 Edward Poppe was ordained priest at Ghent. We wrote in his dairy: “I want to become a holy priest. Christ truly lives in me. I’m another Christ. All of us are Christ. Holy Mother, care that this holy union be the ray of light in all our days and the fire in every one of my actions”.
Curate at Saint Coleta
The young priest's first appointment was in the common parish of Saint Coleta at Ghent where his ideals would be tested by the raw reality of life among the working class people, especially the poor. The life of Father Antoine Chevrier, the Lyons apostle of the poor, would be a deep inspiration and guide. Consistently he wanted to follow Father Chevrier in his triple ideal: the tabernacle, the crib and the cross.
Very soon the parishioners of Saint Coleta realised that for their young priest every liturgical action was a sacred event. He didn’t use the different tricks of a contemporary repertoire, declamation or verbal art. It was in his honest endeavour that people would see God's great love present and shining through him and experience it themselves. Even the children at the catechism lessons and the young people with whom he came in contact at Sunday school would be impressed by Poppes words and by the example he gave, showing them the way to Jesus and uninterruptedly guiding them. The growing dechristianisation remained his great concern.
Two years of priestly life at Saint Coleta (Ghent) had made him, but also broken him.
Rector at Moerzeke
At the end of the war, for reasons of health, Poppe was transferred to the distant rural village of Moerzeke where he became rector at the convent whilst regaining his strength (1918-1922).
Four years of study and contemplation, of which half were spent in bed, were enough for Poppe to beat the alarm in Flanders of heavy times to come.
His rest provided him with plenty of time during which he could carefully pursue his spiritual exercises. His old dream to becoming a monk, leading a purely contemplative life woke up again. He became a man of prayer, permanently living in the presence of God. His life became what Teresa of Avila once termed ‘a prayer of rest'. Besides his prayers he took time to study: mystical theology, Mariology, spirituality, the lives of the saints and secular pedagogy, these were his favourites. He gave particular attention to the religious and spiritual education of children and young people as worked out and presented by some saints.
He studied the essay on ‘the love of God’ from Francis de Sales and the essay on ‘The true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Maria’ from Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort: two great saints who contributed a lot to the spirituality of priest Poppe.
These saints he called: 'The giant pedagogues of grace" in comparison to the contemporary pedagogy scientists whose theories he thoroughly knew. Seating in bed Poppe wrote his numerous letters and noted his thoughts; therefore he used a small desk on which he had painted a chalice.
A turning point in Edward’s spirituality was the visit to the tomb of the saintly Carmelite nun, Thérèse Martin, at Lisieux on September, 15th 1920. There, according to his own testimony, he received “the greatest grace of his life”. Her ‘little way’ became his ‘short way’ for the rest of his life.
Far in advance of his time Poppe summoned all educators to a crusade of re-evangelisation focusing on the Eucharist as the beginning and the end. Poppes time at Moerzeke became the time of a far-sighted and far-reaching apostolate radiating into the priests’ union, the work with the catechists, the religious education through the ‘Eucharistic method’, the liturgical renewal, the lay apostolate, the social and the Flemish movements. Everyone could approach him in his Moerzeke home. There were prayers, encouragements, blessings, healings an the search for ways of peace and reconciliation in the war torn Flanders. People didn’t come to listen to Poppe, but to the Master, and they returned home, changed.
Spiritual director at Leopoldsburg
In October 1922 Poppe arrived at the military camp at Leopoldsburg where he became the spiritual director of the clergy doing their military service, Here he would spend the last fifteen months of his active apostolate.
It was his joy to be able to carry across his message not only to the future religious educators of his people, but also to countless other ones whom he was able to sensitize for the Kingdom by means of his spoken and written word.
On his sickbed at Moerzeke (1924) during the last months of his life, in the twilight of death, Poppe would repeatedly question himself whether he had done enough for the Kingdom. Yet again he would be taught by the ‘little way’ of his favourite saint Thérèse Martin ‘to plunge empty-handed in the furnace of Gods Love’, for the sanctification of his confreres.
In the morning of 10th June 1924 the most loved priest of Flanders passed away with his eyes fixed on the statue of the Sacred Heart in whose mercy he had put his complete trust.
A blessed one for our time
Poppe spoke and wrote about prayer life, training of willpower formation of conscience, spirituality for priests, lay apostolate, apostolic religious life, catechetical renewal, the missionary church and the church of the poor in some brochures and in 284 contributions in various journals and in the more than thousand letters we have from him.
Already in his time Poppe recognized the priority of the Christian conscience and the autonomy of the earthly values which, only much later, in Vatican II would be officially professed by the Church.
From his sober, deeply Christian mother he had not only the natural sense for prayer and a good heart; also he inherited the urge of clear agreements and firm approach. In his father he admired his strength and hard work and his love for the common man. In the evening mother recited the Rosary, followed by the litany of Our Lady and the many intentions for the living and the death.
Edward grew up in a large family; he went to school kept by the Sisters of Saint Vincent and the Brothers of Charity. He was excelled by his critical and practical sense, his independent opinion and perseverance. He shared in grieves of the ordinary people in Flanders, which he deeply loved.
Seminary
In May 1909 Edward Poppe, a talented student, decided to become a diocesan priest in order to serve ‘poor Flanders’ which at home and through the youth movement he became to know and to love. Already as a seminarian (1910-1916) he cherished the intense desire to fulfil God’s Will as perfectly possible. After the example of Jesus and Mary and open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he followed in the footsteps of his favourite saints.
On May 1st, 1916 Edward Poppe was ordained priest at Ghent. We wrote in his dairy: “I want to become a holy priest. Christ truly lives in me. I’m another Christ. All of us are Christ. Holy Mother, care that this holy union be the ray of light in all our days and the fire in every one of my actions”.
Curate at Saint Coleta
The young priest's first appointment was in the common parish of Saint Coleta at Ghent where his ideals would be tested by the raw reality of life among the working class people, especially the poor. The life of Father Antoine Chevrier, the Lyons apostle of the poor, would be a deep inspiration and guide. Consistently he wanted to follow Father Chevrier in his triple ideal: the tabernacle, the crib and the cross.
Very soon the parishioners of Saint Coleta realised that for their young priest every liturgical action was a sacred event. He didn’t use the different tricks of a contemporary repertoire, declamation or verbal art. It was in his honest endeavour that people would see God's great love present and shining through him and experience it themselves. Even the children at the catechism lessons and the young people with whom he came in contact at Sunday school would be impressed by Poppes words and by the example he gave, showing them the way to Jesus and uninterruptedly guiding them. The growing dechristianisation remained his great concern.
Two years of priestly life at Saint Coleta (Ghent) had made him, but also broken him.
Rector at Moerzeke
At the end of the war, for reasons of health, Poppe was transferred to the distant rural village of Moerzeke where he became rector at the convent whilst regaining his strength (1918-1922).
Four years of study and contemplation, of which half were spent in bed, were enough for Poppe to beat the alarm in Flanders of heavy times to come.
His rest provided him with plenty of time during which he could carefully pursue his spiritual exercises. His old dream to becoming a monk, leading a purely contemplative life woke up again. He became a man of prayer, permanently living in the presence of God. His life became what Teresa of Avila once termed ‘a prayer of rest'. Besides his prayers he took time to study: mystical theology, Mariology, spirituality, the lives of the saints and secular pedagogy, these were his favourites. He gave particular attention to the religious and spiritual education of children and young people as worked out and presented by some saints.
He studied the essay on ‘the love of God’ from Francis de Sales and the essay on ‘The true devotion to the Blessed Virgin Maria’ from Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort: two great saints who contributed a lot to the spirituality of priest Poppe.
These saints he called: 'The giant pedagogues of grace" in comparison to the contemporary pedagogy scientists whose theories he thoroughly knew. Seating in bed Poppe wrote his numerous letters and noted his thoughts; therefore he used a small desk on which he had painted a chalice.
A turning point in Edward’s spirituality was the visit to the tomb of the saintly Carmelite nun, Thérèse Martin, at Lisieux on September, 15th 1920. There, according to his own testimony, he received “the greatest grace of his life”. Her ‘little way’ became his ‘short way’ for the rest of his life.
Far in advance of his time Poppe summoned all educators to a crusade of re-evangelisation focusing on the Eucharist as the beginning and the end. Poppes time at Moerzeke became the time of a far-sighted and far-reaching apostolate radiating into the priests’ union, the work with the catechists, the religious education through the ‘Eucharistic method’, the liturgical renewal, the lay apostolate, the social and the Flemish movements. Everyone could approach him in his Moerzeke home. There were prayers, encouragements, blessings, healings an the search for ways of peace and reconciliation in the war torn Flanders. People didn’t come to listen to Poppe, but to the Master, and they returned home, changed.
Spiritual director at Leopoldsburg
In October 1922 Poppe arrived at the military camp at Leopoldsburg where he became the spiritual director of the clergy doing their military service, Here he would spend the last fifteen months of his active apostolate.
It was his joy to be able to carry across his message not only to the future religious educators of his people, but also to countless other ones whom he was able to sensitize for the Kingdom by means of his spoken and written word.
On his sickbed at Moerzeke (1924) during the last months of his life, in the twilight of death, Poppe would repeatedly question himself whether he had done enough for the Kingdom. Yet again he would be taught by the ‘little way’ of his favourite saint Thérèse Martin ‘to plunge empty-handed in the furnace of Gods Love’, for the sanctification of his confreres.
In the morning of 10th June 1924 the most loved priest of Flanders passed away with his eyes fixed on the statue of the Sacred Heart in whose mercy he had put his complete trust.
A blessed one for our time
Poppe spoke and wrote about prayer life, training of willpower formation of conscience, spirituality for priests, lay apostolate, apostolic religious life, catechetical renewal, the missionary church and the church of the poor in some brochures and in 284 contributions in various journals and in the more than thousand letters we have from him.
Already in his time Poppe recognized the priority of the Christian conscience and the autonomy of the earthly values which, only much later, in Vatican II would be officially professed by the Church.