The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary on the Memorial of Maximilian Kolbe assist our understanding of the blessings and challenges involved in leading people to God.
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| Leading to Life |
The reading from Deuteronomy describes the vision of Moses of the Promised Land before his death.
Gilead Western Sea Zoar1
In Psalm 66, the community praises God for powerful acts for Israel and the rescued person steps forward to teach the community what God has done.
* [Psalm 66] In the first part (Ps 66:1–12), the community praises God for powerful acts for Israel, both in the past (the exodus from Egypt and the entry into the land [Ps 66:6]) and in the present (deliverance from a recent but unspecified calamity [Ps 66:8–12]). In the second part (Ps 66:13–20), an individual from the rescued community fulfills a vow to offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. As often in thanksgivings, the rescued person steps forward to teach the community what God has done (Ps 66:16–20).2
The Gospel from Matthew instructs the Church about a brother who sins.
* [18:17] The church: the second of the only two instances of this word in the gospels; see note on Mt 16:18. Here it refers not to the entire church of Jesus, as in Mt 16:18, but to the local congregation. Treat him…a Gentile or a tax collector: just as the observant Jew avoided the company of Gentiles and tax collectors, so must the congregation of Christian disciples separate itself from the arrogantly sinful member who refuses to repent even when convicted of his sin by the whole church. Such a one is to be set outside the fellowship of the community. The harsh language about Gentile and tax collector probably reflects a stage of the Matthean church when it was principally composed of Jewish Christians. That time had long since passed, but the principle of exclusion for such a sinner remained. Paul makes a similar demand for excommunication in 1 Cor 5:1–13.3
Andy Alexander, S.J., shares asking if he could be as heroic and self-sacrificing as Maximilian Kolbe. More directly, he asks for the grace to witness more courageously in the defense of those who are persecuted and on the margins of our society, especially today when that isn't so popular.
In the gospel, Jesus calls us to be reconcilers - to try to repair divisions and to take steps toward greater unity. It is so very difficult to do that today. Nationalism is growing across the globe. Fear is being used to focus on who "we" are and against those who are not "us." It is a natural fear, but for us who are made one in Jesus, by his death and resurrection and the gift of the Spirit, it is a fear to be overcome, not fanned into a flame of deeper tribalism. This is the continuing message of Pope Francis.4
The Catholic Culture Website shares the Collect Prayer for the Memorial of Maximilian Mary Kolbe.
O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe with a burning love for the Immaculate Virgin Mary and with zeal for souls and love of neighbor, graciously grant, through his intercession, that striving for your glory by eagerly serving others, we may be conformed, even until death, to your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.5
Don Schwager quotes “If someone has done you injury,” by Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD).
"If someone has done you injury and you have suffered, what should be done? You have heard the answer already in today's scripture: 'If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.' If you fail to do so, you are worse than he is. He has done someone harm, and by doing harm he has stricken himself with a grievous wound. Will you then completely disregard your brother's wound? Will you simply watch him stumble and fall down? Will you disregard his predicament? If so, you are worse in your silence than he in his abuse. Therefore, when any one sins against us, let us take great care, but not merely for ourselves. For it is a glorious thing to forget injuries. Just set aside your own injury, but do not neglect your brother's wound. Therefore 'go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone,' intent upon his amendment but sparing his sense of shame. For it might happen that through defensiveness he will begin to justify his sin, and so you will have inadvertently nudged him still closer toward the very behavior you desire to amend. Therefore 'tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother,' because he might have been lost, had you not spoken with him. " (excerpt from Sermon 82.7)6
The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 18:15-2 invites us to look at the stories that surround this passage, to see that Jesus is talking about another particular time when he is present with us: when we come together to repair relationships.
It’s hard to talk about what we’ve done wrong. It’s even harder to bring up a wrong done to us and do it in a loving and humble way. And it’s hardest of all to forgive and start anew. We need God’s grace to begin this process at all, and we really need his help to do it well. That’s why Jesus promised to be with his disciples—with us—whenever we gather to do the hard work of rebuilding a relationship wounded by sin or weakness.
You can probably think of a relationship in your life that could use some fixing right now. Maybe you feel that it’s time to take the first step and reach out. That might well be the Holy Spirit.7
A post by Franciscan Media describes the work of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.
Ordained at 24, Maximilian saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work, and suffering. He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata, a religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later founded another one in Nagasaki, Japan. Both the Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary.8
Donal Anthony Foley shares the story of the friary established by Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki. On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki had actually been the secondary target, but cloud cover over the primary target, Kokura, saved it from obliteration on the day. The supreme irony is that Nagasaki was the city where two-thirds of the Catholics in Japan were concentrated, and so after centuries of persecution they suffered this terrible blow right at the end of the war.
But in a strange parallel to what happened at Hiroshima, the Franciscan Friary established by St Maximilian Kolbe in Nagasaki before the war was likewise unaffected by the bomb which fell there. St Maximilian, who was well-known for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin, had decided to go against the advice he had been given to build his friary in a certain location. When the bomb was dropped, the friary was protected from the force of the bomb by an intervening mountain. So both at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we can see Mary’s protective hand at work.9
Friar Jude Winkler describes the full life of Moses covering three generations. Exclusion from the community is an ultimate fate for failure to recognize our transgressions. Friar Jude reminds us of the blessing of communal prayer.
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, invites us to hear from John Esposito. For those of us living in the 21st century—an age of globalization, mass migrations, and increasingly multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies—mutual understanding and respect, based on religious pluralism rather than religious exclusivism, are extremely critical to our survival.
The insights from the perennial tradition have much to contribute in developing and strengthening multi-faith relations. Its insights help to combat religious discrimination and conflicts between and within religious traditions, and to develop more pluralistic paths of religious spirituality. Today, in the 21st century, we see scholars and spiritual teachers forging new, more inclusive spiritual paths that recognize other religious traditions as sources of insight and wisdom. . . .
While there is an underlying unity, there is also a diversity of conceptualizations of the ultimate reality, and multiple interpretations. Thus, the ultimate reality is described as at once transcendent and immanent, personal and impersonal; it is identified by diverse names (God, Yahweh, Allah, Vishnu, Shiva, Nirvana or Buddhahood) and is often experienced differently. Each religion is a unique way to know divine reality and to reach spiritual enlightenment or salvation. [2]10
The ministry of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe was simultaneously very connected to Roman Catholic tradition and in the service to death of those outside the Church of Rome. Our service has been described by Pope Francis as responding to the “cry of the earth” and the “cry of the poor.”
References
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