Maximilian Kolbe and Kaj Munk Psalm 5:1-12 Give ear to my words, O LORD; give heed to my sighting. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you I pray. O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you, and watch. For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil will not sojourn with you. The boastful will not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house, I will bow down toward your holy temple in awe of you. Lead me, O LORD, in your righteousness because of my enemies; make your way straight before me. For there is no truth in their mouths; their hearts are destruction; their throats are open graves; they flatter with their tongues. Make them bear their guilt, O God; let them fall by their own counsels; because of their many transgressions cast them out, for they have rebelled against you. But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult in you. For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover them with favor as with a shield. Maximilian Kolbe was the second of three sons born to a poor but pious Catholic family in Russian occupied Poland. 7 January 1894 at Zdunska Wola, Poland as Raymond Kolbe His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers. His father, Julius, later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in Pilsudski’s army, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914. His mother, Marianne Dabrowska, later became a Benedictine nun. His brother Alphonse became a priest. Raymond was known as a mischievous child, sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life. “I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.” He entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow, Poland in 1907 where he excelled in mathematics and physics. For a while he wanted to abandon the priesthood for the military, but eventually relented to the call to religious life, and on 4 September 1910 he became a novice in the Conventual Franciscan Order at age 16. He took the name Maximilian, made his first vows on 5 September 1911, his final vows on 1 November 1914. Stricken with tuberculosis which nearly killed him, and left him in frail in health the rest of his life. Ordained on 28 April 1918 in Rome at age 24. Received his Doctor of Theology on 22 July 1922; his insights into Marian theology echo today through their influence on Vatican II. Maximilian returned to Poland on 29 July 1919 to teach history in the Crakow seminary. Not content with his work in Poland, Maximilian and four brothers left for Japan in 1930. Within a month of their arrival, penniless and knowing no Japanese, Maximilian was printing a Japanese version of the Knight; the magazine, Seibo no Kishi grew to a circulation of 65,000 by 1936. In 1931 he founded a monastery in Nagasaki, Japan comparable to Niepokalanow. It survived the war, including the nuclear bombing, and serves today as a center of Franciscan work in Japan. Poor health forced him to curtail his missionary work and return to Poland in 1936. On 8 December 1938 the monastery started its own radio station. By 1939 the monastery housed a religious community of nearly 800 men, the largest in the world in its day, and was completely self-sufficient including medical facilities and a fire brigade staffed by the religious brothers. Arrested with several of his brothers on 19 September 1939 following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Others at the monastery were briefly exiled, but the prisoners were released on 8 December 1939, and the men returned to their work. Back at Niepokalanow he continued his priestly ministry, The brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi. For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941. On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards. His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead. The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Mass and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine. In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner. Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape. Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished – in service. 14 August 1941 by lethal carbonic acid injection after three weeks of starvation and dehydration at the Auschwitz, Poland death camp; body burned in the ovens and ashes scattered “No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?” – Saint Maximilian Kolbe in the last issue of the Knight Kaj Munk was born Kaj Petersen on Jan 13, 1898 in Maribo, Denmark. His father was a tanner. His parents died before he was 6, and he was adopted by the Munk family, his cousins, and took their name as his own. He was left a tender tribute to his adoptive mother upon the occasion of her death, in his sermon for the 6th Sunday after Easter. The boy was tutored privately by Oscar Geismar, a poet and literary critic. Although his family was poor, they were able to send him to Nykobing University, so that he could become a pastor. While there, he was under the influence of the work of Soren Kierkegaard. Munk was ordained in 1924 and became a pastor of one of the smallest parishes in Denmark. It was his only parish. He married a local woman and they had five children. Munk was respected and loved by his people, and when he suggested that he ought to resign his parish to devote himself to writing, the parishioners urged him to stay and called an assistant to help with pastoral work. During WWII his powerful sermons drew people to resistance, and his own resistance became so outspoken that his plays were banned. Because of his outspoken resistance, he was arrested in the fall of 1943, but was released at Christmas. On the night of Jan 4, 1944, Munk was taken from his vicarage by the Gestapo. His body was found the next day in a ditch on a road out of town. He had been shot through the head. More than 4,000 people defied Nazi orders and attended his funeral at Venderso. Kaj Munk is commemorated not only for his own bold witness to the faith but also as a symbol of the many thousands who bravely but with less attention resisted the Nazi tyranny. Psalm 5 is a prayer of deliverance from personal enemies. You can hear the words of the psalmist placing their trust in God in a time of difficulty. The righteous are called to stand up against wickedness, evil and deceit. When it becomes difficult, we are called to cry out to the Lord. We are called to seek refuge in the Lord. And those times will come. Because if we are righteous, we speak out about these enemies of God. We are called to stand up and boldly and proclaim the words of the Lord. Our Lutheran tradition teaches us that we are to stand up and boldly proclaim God’s word. And we are aware that when we truly do this task, we will be lead into situations of difficulty. And we are called to stand up not just for ourselves, but also for all those who fall prey to the enemies of God. We are one in the body of Christ. We are united in Christ. So Catholics and Lutheran can stand against a common enemy. Catholics and Protestants can assist Jews when they become the prey. We are all placed together into one common, united movement proclaiming God’s word. But we go through it together. We realize that we are part of a grater whole. We are more than just us. And when we stand together as ONE, we stand together as ONE with God. We are afraid to stand up. But God is our shield. Like Maximilian Kolbe & Kaj Munk, we are called to stand up for justice. Our Discipleship may lead us to be Martyrs. Here We Stand – Stand up and boldly proclaim God’s word. The ONE TRUINE GOD – who through steadfast love will allow us to enter the eternal house, through whom we are able to bow in the Temple of the LORD. It is through this ONE God that we have righteousness, their righteousness, among our enemies. It is the ONE God who makes the path straight. The One God who puts truth in our mouths, and love in our hearts, and the words on our tongues. The ONE God in whom we take refuge. The ONE God that we sing for joy. The ONE God who spreads protection over us and shields us. We are ONE with the ONE God, whom we serve.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:51:07 +0000
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