Maximilian Kolbe

----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Nivard ... To: donald ...> Sent: Sat, 14 August, 2010 12:34:51 Subject: Maximilian Mass Intro        Father Kolbe's death was not a sudden, last-minute act of heroism. His whole life had been a preparation. His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. And his beloved Immaculata was his inspiration.      When first arrested, he said to his brethren: "Courage, my sons. Don't you see that we are leaving on a mission? And besides, and, into the bargain, they pay our fare. How very providential! We now have to pray well, in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us, anything she wishes".   Prayer after Communion   Lord God, we pray that we, who have been nourished body and blood of your Son, may be inflamed by that same love which St Maximilan received from this holy banquet.          Grant this in the name of Jesus, the Lord.    Go in peace to love and serve the Lord                        Saturday, 14 August 2010 St Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (1894-1941         Raymond Kolbe was born on the 8th of January 1894 in Zdunska Wola, which at that time was occupied by Russia. The Kolbe home was poor but full of love. The parents, hardworking and religious, educated their three sons with rectitude.          Around 1906, an event took place that marks a fundamental milestone in the life of the young boy. His mother herself related the event a few months after her son's martyrdom.         "I knew ahead of time, based on an extraordinary event that took place in his infancy, that Maximilian would die a martyr. I just don't recall if it took place before or after his first confession. Once I did not like one of his pranks and I reproached him for it: 'My son, what ever will become of you?!' Later, I did not think of it again, but I noticed that the boy had changed so radically, he was hardly recognizable. We had a small altar hidden between two dressers before which he used to often retire without being noticed and he would pray there crying. In general, he had a conduct superior to his age, always recollected and serious and when he prayed he would burst into tears. I was worried, thinking he had some sort of illness so I asked him: 'Is there anything wrong? You should share everything with your mommy!' Trembling with emotion and with his eyes flooded in tears, he shared: 'Mama, when you reproached me, I pleaded with the Blessed Mother to tell me what would become of me. At Church I did the same; I prayed the same thing again. So then the Blessed Mother appeared to me holding in her hands two crowns: one white the other red. She looked at me with tenderness and asked me if I wanted these two crowns. The white one signified that I would preserve my purity and the red that I would be a martyr. I answered that I accepted them...(both of them). Then the Virgin Mary looked at me with sweetness and disappeared.' The extraordinary change in the boys' behavior testified to me the truth of what he related. He was fully conscious and as he spoke to me, with his face radiating; it showed me his desire to die a martyr."              When he was 13 years old he entered the Franciscan Fathers Seminary in the polish city of Lvov, which was at that time occupied by Austria. It was in the seminary where he adopted the name Maximilian. He completed his studies in Rome . Before his ordination as a priest in 1918, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement devoted to our Lady. He spread the movement through a magazine entitled "The Knight of the Immaculata". "We should conquer the universe and each soul, now and in the future until the end of time, for the Immaculata and through her for the Sacred Heart of Jesus." (St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, The Knight of the Immaculata)          Maximilian went to Japan and then on to India where he furthered the Movement. After a few years in Japan, St. Maximilian was summoned back to Poland, largely due to his ever-declining health.          Three years later, in the midst of the Second World War, he was imprisoned along with other friars and sent to concentration camps in Germany and Poland. In February of 1941 he was again made a prisoner and sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where in spite of the terrible living conditions he continued his ministry.          On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner's escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father. And he was the last to die, enduring two weeks of starvation, thirst, and neglect. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1982 as a Martyr of

charity.


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Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI]: «Jesus took a child and placed it by his side and said to them: 'Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me' » (Lk 9,47-48)

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 19:13-15.

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." After he placed his hands on them, he went away.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger [Pope Benedict XVI]
Retreat preached at the Vatican, 1983


«Jesus took a child and placed it by his side and said to them: 'Whoever receives this child in my name, receives me' » (Lk 9,47-48)

       We should remember that Jesus' essential attribute and the one that most calls forth his dignity is that of 'Son'... His life's orientation, the purpose for which he came and the end that gave them shape are expressed in a single word: «Abba, beloved Father». Jesus knew he was never alone and, right up to his final cry on the cross, he obeyed him whom he called Father, submitting his whole being to him. It is this alone that allows us to explain why he refused at the last to call himself king or lord or attribute to himself any other title of power but had recourse to a word that we might well translate as 'child'.

       Thus we could say what follows: if, in Jesus' preaching, childhood occupies such an extraordinarily significant place, it is because it corresponds the most profoundly to the mystery that was most personal to him, to his sonship. His highest dignity, that which refers us back to his divinity, does not consist in the end in any power he might have disposed of but was founded on his being orientated towards the other: God, the Father. The German exegete, Joachim Jeremias, has well said that to be a child in Jesus' sense means to learn to say «Father».