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."
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
