What do we have to do to truly be a disciple of Jesus? Who will be chosen to enter into God’s eternal kingdom? In essence, that’s what Jesus is asked while he is traveling through the towns and villages near Jerusalem: “Jesus, will only a few people be saved? Will I be among them?” In his response to this question, perhaps Jesus is telling us that it is entirely another question that we need to be asking instead.
Back in the early years of the 20th century, there was a little boy named Raymond Kolbe living in a poor village in Poland. Raymond was a very mischievous boy, always getting into trouble and not obeying his parents. His mother, losing patience with him one day, cried out: Lord, what is going to become of my son Raymond? Reflecting upon what his mother said, Raymond prayed to our Blessed Mother: Mother Mary, what is to become of me? Mary responded to him in a vision, holding two crowns: one white, the other red. Mary asked him if he was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that he should persevere in purity, the red crown meant that he would become a martyr. He said that he would accept both crowns. At the age of 12, Raymond entered the Conventual Franciscans, where he took the religious name Maximilian. He was ordained a priest at the age of 24. In the following years, he traveling as a missionary to China, Japan, and India where he founded Franciscan monasteries. He promoted a deep love and devotion to the Blessed Mother wherever he went. He finally returned to Poland, founding a monastery just outside of Warsaw. The publishing house and radio station that ran out of the monastery were very influential. We think of how today we use apps, blogs, cell phones, and websites as the latest technology to evangelize to the world. In the early decades of the 20th century, Kolbe used the technology available to him at the time to evangelize. After the German invasion of Poland, the radio station and publishing house spoke out against the Nazi regime. The monastery was shut down, with Kolbe being arrested. He was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, becoming prisoner #16670. His cell became a chapel where he invited all of the other prisoners to pray the rosary, to sing hymns to the Blessed Mother, and to celebrate the Eucharist. Because he was a priest, he was harassed constantly by the camp guards, who singled him out for beatings and lashings. Two months after his arrival at Auschwitz, a prisoner from Kolbe’s barracks escaped. As punishment, 10 of them from that barracks were chosen to be sent to a special bunker where they would be starved to death. Kolbe was not one of those who were initially chosen. However, when he learned that one of the men had a large family with many children, in order to spare him, Kolbe volunteered to take his place. During their time in the bunker, Kolbe led the other prisoners in prayer and tried to reassure them of God’s fidelity. He was the last of those 10 prisoners to remain alive after 2 weeks of confinement, so in order to end his life, the guards injected him with carbolic acid. He died on August 14, 1941. The prison guards cremated his body on the next day on August 15, the date we celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, our Blessed Mother to whom he was so devoted. During Kolbe’s canonization in 1982, Pope John Paul II called him the patron saint of the 20th century, an era that saw so much war, violence, and crimes against humanity. We remember St Kolbe on his feast day of August 14th each year.
I don’t think that Father Maximilian Kolbe worried about the question that was asked in the Gospel by someone in the crowds: Will I be saved? Who else will be saved? How many will be saved? As Jesus says in the Gospel, some of the people in Jesus’ day who followed him were thinking: Jesus, we heard you teach in our communities. We shared meals with you. We became your disciples. We were part of your “in-group”, your followers. Certainly we will be saved. Certainly we did enough to be able to enter into God’s kingdom.
Yes, Jesus calls us to a life of discipleship. He calls us to go beyond the surface, to let his teachings penetrate our hearts, to open ourselves to conversion and change. So, instead of asking questions about who is going to be saved and worrying about that, perhaps we need to concentrate on deepening our relationship with Christ, growing closer to him and the values of his Gospel. We were saved in the past in our lives, at the moment of our baptism, at the moment of our initiation into the faith. We are saved in the present moment, as Christ calls us to on-going conversion and renewal. And we will be saved in the future, in the grace that God’s offers us each day. We are invited to pass through the door of faith each day as pilgrim people here on earth. Some days, that door may seem very narrow and very difficult to enter.
One of the main images that Pope Francis call us to is Jesus as the door of God’s love and mercy. In fact, Pope Francis declared a Year of Mercy several years ago, drawing us to that image. The Pope kicked off the Jubilee Year by opening the special door in St Peter’s in Rome that is only opened during special Jubilee Years. He did so not just by swinging open those large, heavy doors. He took a hammer and tore down the brick that was closing off that door, opening it for the pilgrims to enter as they visit St Peter’s. Some days, there will be a lot of bricks for us to tear down in our lives, bricks that are keeping us from moving forward on our journey of faith. With God’s mercy and grace, we will be given the strength to do so.
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