August 14: Fr. Maximillian Kolbe; 19th Week, Saturday,
Joshua 24:14-29 / Matthew 19:13-15
Joshua confronts the people; "Decide whom you will serve."
A man named Sam went to consult a doctor about his ailing health. The doctor checked him carefully and said, "Sam, the best thing you can do is go on a diet, give up smoking, and start exercising daily." Sam turned and said, "Doc, I don't deserve the best. What's the second-best thing I can do?"When the
point of that story sinks in, we realize how much we are all like the
Israelites in today's reading. We too know what we should do, but we don't do
it. We vacillate and we compromise. We lack the courage and the discipline to
"bite the bullet."
***
Is there
something in our lives right now that we are compromising? "Wisdom is
knowing what to do next. Skill is knowing how to do it. Virtue is doing
it." Thomas Jefferson
***
At the
occasion of the entrance of God’s people into the Promised Land, Joshua
convokes them to renew the covenant. They must realize that by doing so, they
opt for God, they make a decisive choice, and they commit themselves to God and
his kingdom. Haven’t we taken the same option at baptism? We are bound to the
God of the covenant, a God of tender love. To serve him is a response of love
given in freedom.
***
It has been said that the church is not just a building made of stone walls. The church is made of living stones, because we are the people of God, we are the Church. The building is only a sign and a place for worship. Nonetheless the building is significant. Because when the building is destroyed, the people lose their focus. Just like how the enemies destroy the Temple in Jerusalem when they overran the Israelites.
Also, these stone walls bear silent witness to the life and the worship of the church community. Even in the 1st reading, we heard how Joshua took a great stone and set it in the sanctuary of the Lord and said that this stone will be the witness to the covenant between the Lord and His people. As we reflect deeper about this, we are also reminded that our home is not just a house with stone walls.
We, the
family members, make it a home as well as a dwelling place for God, a mini
sanctuary of the Lord. The home is a house of blessings and a house of prayer.
Hence, we must teach our children to pray and also to bless them whenever they
go off or when they come back. Like what Jesus did in the gospel, we can just
lay our hands on their heads or just make the sign of the cross on their
foreheads. Let us make our house a home of love and blessings. Otherwise, it is
just a house of stones.
***
Few people
today take Jesus’ words seriously when he says: “To such as these little
children the kingdom of heaven belongs.” Many, for example, discredit the
spirituality of the little way of St Therese of Lisieux. We speak of adulthood
in Christ, of a human and spiritual maturity. And yet, true adulthood consists
in what God wanted us to be in Jesus Christ, in being receptive to the gospel.
To the disciples, who have no use for children and who want to cut the gospel
to the measure of their petty ideas, Jesus holds up the child not as a sign of
innocence but as a model of openness to God and to the good news of his Son. It
is the entrance ticket to the kingdom.
***
Fr. Maximillian Kolbe: The number 16670 may not have much significance for us, nor does it have any meaning whatsoever in our modern world. But going back 77 years ago, on the 28th May 1941, when a man was transferred to Auschwitz prison, he was given a number - 16670, and he was known as prisoner #16670.
That man was
Fr. Maximillian Kolbe, and he was arrested by the
Nazis for harbouring Jews from the German invasion in his priory in Poland. While
he was in prison, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting the
deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men to be starved to death in an underground
bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men,
Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe
volunteered to take his place.
***
In that underground bunker, Kolbe celebrated Mass each day and prayed with the rest of the nine condemned prisoners and encouraged them with the hope of heaven. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive and the guards gave him a lethal injection to put him to death.
It was just another case of the atrocities that happened at the Auschwitz prison. But it was a story of faith and courage, love and sacrifice. That is what we are celebrating as we remember St. Maximillian Kolbe and his sacrifice for another human being.
And as Jesus
said in the gospel, where two or three are gathered in His name, He will be
there. And we can see it clearly that St Kolbe was a sign of the presence of
Jesus to the nine condemned men as they awaited their death. May we follow the
example of St. Maximillian Kolbe and be a presence of Jesus for others and be
for them a sign of faith and courage, love and sacrifice.
***
Prayer
Lord our
God, you love all that is little and humble. As a child seeks refuge in the arms
of its parents, may our strength be to let you carry us. Teach us through
little children not to boast of anything we have or anything we have done but
to be open to and receptive of your grace. For you are our greatness and
richness through Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen
