8/14/2012 – Tuesday of 19th week of ordinary time – St Maximilian Kolbe – Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14

    "Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” ask the disciples of Jesus.  Who is number one?  Who is the best?  Who is the richest?  Who has the most power?  Our society today seems as obsessed with being the best, echoing what we see in the disciples in today’s Gospel.  It is not entirely wrong to try to excel in something, but if we put this before God, if we make this our idol, then are we truly following the will of God for us in our lives?  Jesus puts a small child before the disciples, telling them that it is the humility of a small child, it is the openness and simplicity and enthusiasm of a child to which the Kingdom of God belongs.

         Today, as we hear this very wise Gospel reading, we don’t celebrate a millionaire or a king or a titan of industry as our model of faith, but rather a humble priest who died in a concentration camp in Poland during World War II.  Maximilian Kolbe, the saint whose feast day we celebrate today, was a Franciscan priest who was also a renowned scholar and theologian, the publisher of a popular Catholic magazine that had more than one million subscribers.  But what he is remembered for is the way he lived our the values of the Gospel in his life each day.  Saint Kolbe believed that indifference was the deadliest poison we have in society, which he witnessed as Fascism spread throughout Europe.  Kolbe died in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, having been arrested for the way his monastery helped out and sheltered the refugees who were being persecuted by the Nazis.  St Kolbe died when he voluntarily took the place of a married man with many children who was going to be put to death.  

         I found this prayer asking for the intercessions of Saint Maximilian Kolbe in A Book on the Saints by Anne Gordon.  I think it really captures the essence of this remarkable saint:

Through your life and work you proved that nothing is more precious than our essential humanity.  I pray that you will stand by me and give me the courage to act everyday with the sense of fairness, compassion and respect for all living things that your exemplified.  You have shown that great faith may call for noble and heroic action.  If I am to be true to myself, Saint Kolbe, I pray that you will stand with me also in my most difficult hours.  Be a reminder to me that I must have the courage of my convictions.  Help me to imbue my every action with meaning and to have the courage to find the greater meaning and purpose to which I seek to dedicate my life.  

I want to say a special prayer today for Kolbe Alsobrooks - he is the son of Paul and Lisa Alsobrooks of St Richard parish in Jackson, Mississippi, where I first served as a priest.  Kolbe was named after Maximilian Kolbe, and their devotion to this wonderful saint helped light my devotion to him as well.  

Also, I want you all to say a special prayer for the inmates of the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in the city of Pearl, the Yazoo County Regional Correctional Facility, and the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Complex.  I visit all three of those correctional facilities as a Catholic priest. I would have never predicted that I would become so involved in prison ministry as a priest, yet I have a great love for prison ministry and have a strong bond with these men to whom I minister.  It all started with one prisoner writing me a letter several years ago, and now I go out to the prisons at least a couple times a week.  My heart and prayers go out to these inmates and their families - I pray for the intercessions of St Maximilian Kolbe for them.  I pray for justice for them, for God's will to be done, whatever that will may be.  I pray for the victims of their crimes and their families as well.