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He did all things well.
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Aug 14, 2014, 2:01:49 PM8/14/14
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He did all things well. [Mark 7:37 ] August: Diligence
22. Perform faithfully what God requires of you each moment, and leave the thought of everything else to Him. I assure you that to live in this way will bring you great peace.
--St. Jane Frances de Chantal
The Saint herself was an example of this course of conduct. So was St. Francis de Sales also, of whom it was said that when he was doing any work or transacting any business, he gave his whole mind to it, as if he had nothing else in the world to think of.
Nazianzen relates of his mother that she threw herself wholly into whatever she was doing and did everything to perfection, so that seeing her in the midst of her household occupations one would think she cared for nothing else; but when she was attending to her spiritual duties, she showed that they were receiving her whole attention; and she felt as much interest in every occupation as if she had no other.
<<>><<>><<>>
August 14th - St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (RM)
Born at Zdunska Wola (near Lodz), Poland, in 1894; died at Auschwitz (near Cracow), August 14, 1941; beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971; canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.
"Pray that my love will be without limits." --Saint Maximilian Kolbe in his last letter to his mother.
Maxilian Kolbe was the son of Franciscan tertiaries, who were impoverished weavers. He entered the minor seminary at Lwow in 1907 and became a Franciscan in 1910. When their children were grown, his parents followed their natural inclinations and separated to become religious. His mother first entered the Benedictines and later became a Felician lay sister. His father was a Franciscan until he left the order to run a bookstore at the Our Lady's shrine at Czestochowa. At the beginning of World War I, he enlisted with Palsudski's patriots, was wounded by the Russians, and hanged as a traitor to Mother Russia in 1914 at the age of 43.
Maximilian studied in Rome, where he was ordained in 1919. Upon being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he returned to Poland and took up the teaching of ecclessial history in a seminary. After he came close to dying of the disease, he became even more zealous. He founded a militant sodality and a magazine of apologetics for Christians. When he moved the antiquated presses from Cracow to Grodno circulation increased to 45,000. New machinery was installed, which was run solely by priests and lay brothers. Following another attack of tuberculosis, Maximilian re-established the presses near Warsaw at Niepokalanow. Here Kolbe founded a Franciscan community that combined prayer, poverty, and the production of a daily and weekly newspaper using the latest technology.
As unlikely as it may seem, Kolbe's next act was the founding of a Franciscan community at Nagasaki, Japan. In 1936, he was recalled to Niepokalanow as the superior over 762 friars. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Kolbe sent most of the brothers home with the warning that they should not join the underground resistance. Those that remained were interned, released, and returned to the monastery, which had become a refugee camp for 3,000 Poles and 1,500 Jews. The remaining friars continued to publish newspapers critical of the Third Reich.
In 1940, the Nazis established a concentration camp at Oswiecim in southern Poland--Auschwitz. Prisoner #16670, a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe, who had refused German citizenship, was arrested on February 17, 1941, on the charge that he was a journalist, publisher, and intellectual. The Gestapo officers who seized Maxilian and four other brothers were amazed at how little food was prepared for the brothers. They were sent to Auschwitz in May 1941.
Priests in Auschwitz were especially vilified. They were given the job of moving loads of logs and were beaten when their strength gave way under the heavy work. One of the savage guards once horsewhipped Kolbe 50 times and left him for dead in a wood. The saint recovered some of his strength, and continued to comfort his fellow prisoners, insisting that everything, even sufferings, came to an end, and the way to glory was through the cross.
Father Kolbe also undertook the task of moving the bodies of the tortured. Throughout his internment, he continued his priestly ministry: hearing confessions in unlikely places and smuggling in bread and wine for covert Masses. He was conspicuous for his compassion towards those even less fortunate than himself.
One day a prisoner escaped, which meant that men from the same bunker must be selected to die. In reprisal the prison guards chose ten men, whom they planned to starve to death. One was a married Polish sergeant named Francis Gajowniczek. Maximilian Kolbe begged the camp commandant to let him take Gajowniczek's place, "I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man." The request was granted. "I am," argued the 47-year-old priest, "old and useless; he has a wife and children" Maximilian Kolbe comforted each one in the death chamber of Cell 18 as they prepared to die with dignity by prayers, Psalms, and the example of Christ's Passion. Two weeks later only four were left alive and Maximilian alone was still fully conscious. His guards could scarcely bear the saint's composure, and they speeded his end by injecting him with phenol.
Although Maximilian Kolbe had been a brilliant scientist, mathematician, and religious journalist, he is remembered for this last act of charity. Kolbe was epitomized the Polish religious and the many unsung heroes of the concentration camps. Pope John Paul II, previously archbishop of Cracow, canonized Father Kolbe in the presence of the sergeant whose life had been saved (Bentley, Farmer).
Saint Quote
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.
--Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Bible Quote:
For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think on these things. [Philippians 4:8 ] D.V.
<<>><<>><<>>
Obedience
We must not be satisfied with exteriorly submitting to obedience and in things that are easy, but we must obey with our whole heart, and in things the most difficult. For the greater the difficulty, the greater also is the merit of obedience. Can we refuse to submit to man for God's sake, when God, for love of us, submits to man, even to His very executioners?
Jesus Christ was willingly obedient during His whole life, and even unto the death of the Cross; and am I unwilling to spend my life in the exercise of obedience, and to make it my cross and my merit? Independence belongs to God, who has made man dependent upon others, that his subordination may be to him the means of his sanctification. I will therefore form myself upon the model of my submissive, dependent, and obedient Saviour, and dispose of nothing in myself, not even of my own will.
--Thomas à Kempis
22. Perform faithfully what God requires of you each moment, and leave the thought of everything else to Him. I assure you that to live in this way will bring you great peace.
--St. Jane Frances de Chantal
The Saint herself was an example of this course of conduct. So was St. Francis de Sales also, of whom it was said that when he was doing any work or transacting any business, he gave his whole mind to it, as if he had nothing else in the world to think of.
Nazianzen relates of his mother that she threw herself wholly into whatever she was doing and did everything to perfection, so that seeing her in the midst of her household occupations one would think she cared for nothing else; but when she was attending to her spiritual duties, she showed that they were receiving her whole attention; and she felt as much interest in every occupation as if she had no other.
<<>><<>><<>>
August 14th - St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (RM)
Born at Zdunska Wola (near Lodz), Poland, in 1894; died at Auschwitz (near Cracow), August 14, 1941; beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1971; canonized in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.
"Pray that my love will be without limits." --Saint Maximilian Kolbe in his last letter to his mother.
Maxilian Kolbe was the son of Franciscan tertiaries, who were impoverished weavers. He entered the minor seminary at Lwow in 1907 and became a Franciscan in 1910. When their children were grown, his parents followed their natural inclinations and separated to become religious. His mother first entered the Benedictines and later became a Felician lay sister. His father was a Franciscan until he left the order to run a bookstore at the Our Lady's shrine at Czestochowa. At the beginning of World War I, he enlisted with Palsudski's patriots, was wounded by the Russians, and hanged as a traitor to Mother Russia in 1914 at the age of 43.
Maximilian studied in Rome, where he was ordained in 1919. Upon being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he returned to Poland and took up the teaching of ecclessial history in a seminary. After he came close to dying of the disease, he became even more zealous. He founded a militant sodality and a magazine of apologetics for Christians. When he moved the antiquated presses from Cracow to Grodno circulation increased to 45,000. New machinery was installed, which was run solely by priests and lay brothers. Following another attack of tuberculosis, Maximilian re-established the presses near Warsaw at Niepokalanow. Here Kolbe founded a Franciscan community that combined prayer, poverty, and the production of a daily and weekly newspaper using the latest technology.
As unlikely as it may seem, Kolbe's next act was the founding of a Franciscan community at Nagasaki, Japan. In 1936, he was recalled to Niepokalanow as the superior over 762 friars. When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Kolbe sent most of the brothers home with the warning that they should not join the underground resistance. Those that remained were interned, released, and returned to the monastery, which had become a refugee camp for 3,000 Poles and 1,500 Jews. The remaining friars continued to publish newspapers critical of the Third Reich.
In 1940, the Nazis established a concentration camp at Oswiecim in southern Poland--Auschwitz. Prisoner #16670, a Catholic priest named Maximilian Kolbe, who had refused German citizenship, was arrested on February 17, 1941, on the charge that he was a journalist, publisher, and intellectual. The Gestapo officers who seized Maxilian and four other brothers were amazed at how little food was prepared for the brothers. They were sent to Auschwitz in May 1941.
Priests in Auschwitz were especially vilified. They were given the job of moving loads of logs and were beaten when their strength gave way under the heavy work. One of the savage guards once horsewhipped Kolbe 50 times and left him for dead in a wood. The saint recovered some of his strength, and continued to comfort his fellow prisoners, insisting that everything, even sufferings, came to an end, and the way to glory was through the cross.
Father Kolbe also undertook the task of moving the bodies of the tortured. Throughout his internment, he continued his priestly ministry: hearing confessions in unlikely places and smuggling in bread and wine for covert Masses. He was conspicuous for his compassion towards those even less fortunate than himself.
One day a prisoner escaped, which meant that men from the same bunker must be selected to die. In reprisal the prison guards chose ten men, whom they planned to starve to death. One was a married Polish sergeant named Francis Gajowniczek. Maximilian Kolbe begged the camp commandant to let him take Gajowniczek's place, "I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man." The request was granted. "I am," argued the 47-year-old priest, "old and useless; he has a wife and children" Maximilian Kolbe comforted each one in the death chamber of Cell 18 as they prepared to die with dignity by prayers, Psalms, and the example of Christ's Passion. Two weeks later only four were left alive and Maximilian alone was still fully conscious. His guards could scarcely bear the saint's composure, and they speeded his end by injecting him with phenol.
Although Maximilian Kolbe had been a brilliant scientist, mathematician, and religious journalist, he is remembered for this last act of charity. Kolbe was epitomized the Polish religious and the many unsung heroes of the concentration camps. Pope John Paul II, previously archbishop of Cracow, canonized Father Kolbe in the presence of the sergeant whose life had been saved (Bentley, Farmer).
Saint Quote
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.
--Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Bible Quote:
For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline: think on these things. [Philippians 4:8 ] D.V.
<<>><<>><<>>
Obedience
We must not be satisfied with exteriorly submitting to obedience and in things that are easy, but we must obey with our whole heart, and in things the most difficult. For the greater the difficulty, the greater also is the merit of obedience. Can we refuse to submit to man for God's sake, when God, for love of us, submits to man, even to His very executioners?
Jesus Christ was willingly obedient during His whole life, and even unto the death of the Cross; and am I unwilling to spend my life in the exercise of obedience, and to make it my cross and my merit? Independence belongs to God, who has made man dependent upon others, that his subordination may be to him the means of his sanctification. I will therefore form myself upon the model of my submissive, dependent, and obedient Saviour, and dispose of nothing in myself, not even of my own will.
--Thomas à Kempis
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