Saint Maximilian Kolbe,
Priest, Martyr (1894 – 1941)
Red
He was born on 8 January 1894 in occupied Poland: he joined the Franciscans in Lwów in 1910. In 1941 he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. A prisoner escaped, and in reprisal the authorities were choosing ten people to die by starvation. One of the men had a family, and Maximilian Kolbe offered to take his place. He died in the man’s place.
Entrance Antiphon: Mt 25: 34, 40
Come, you blessed of my Father, says the Lord. Amen I say to you: Whatever you did for one of the least of my brethren, you did it for me.
Collect
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 neighbour, 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.
First reading: Ezekiel 9:1-7,10:18-22
As I, Ezekiel, listened, God shouted, ‘Come here, you scourges of the city, and bring your weapons of destruction.’ Immediately six men advanced from the upper north gate, each holding a deadly weapon. In the middle of them was a man in white, with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt. They came in and halted in front of the bronze altar. The glory of the God of Israel rose off the cherubs where it had been and went up to the threshold of the Temple. He called the man in white with a scribe’s ink horn in his belt and said, ‘Go all through the city, all through Jerusalem, and mark a cross on the foreheads of all who deplore and disapprove of all the filth practised in it.’ I heard him say to the others, ‘Follow him through the city, and strike. Show neither pity nor mercy; old men, young men, virgins, children, women, kill and exterminate them all. But do not touch anyone with a cross on his forehead. Begin at my sanctuary.’ So they began with the old men in front of the Temple. He said to them, ‘Defile the Temple; fill the courts with corpses, and go.’ They went out and hacked their way through the city. The glory of the Lord came out from the Temple threshold and paused over the cherubs. The cherubs spread their wings and rose from the ground to leave, and as I watched the wheels rose with them. They paused at the entrance to the east gate of the Temple of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel hovered over them. This was the creature that I had seen supporting the God of Israel beside the river Chebar, and I was now certain that these were cherubs. Each had four faces and four wings and what seemed to be human hands under their wings. Their faces were just as I had seen them beside the river Chebar. Each moved straight forward.
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm
112(113):1-6
R/ Above the heavens is the glory of the Lord.
Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! May the name of the Lord be blessed both now and for evermore!
From the rising of the sun to its setting praised be the name of the Lord! High above all nations is the Lord, above the heavens his glory.
Who is like the Lord, our God, who has risen on high to his throne yet stoops from the heights to look down, to look down upon heaven and earth?
Gospel Acclamation: Ps110:7,8
Alleluia, alleluia! Your precepts, O Lord, are all of them sure; they stand firm for ever and ever. Alleluia!
Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples: ‘If your brother does something wrong, go and have it out with him alone, between your two selves. If he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you: the evidence of two or three witnesses is required to sustain any charge. But if he refuses to listen to these, report it to the community; and if he refuses to listen to the community, treat him like a pagan or a tax collector. ‘I tell you solemnly, whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven. ‘I tell you solemnly once again, if two of you on earth agree to ask anything at all, it will be granted to you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three meet in my name, I shall be there with them.’
Prayer over the Offerings
We present our oblations to you, O Lord, humbly praying that we may learn from the example of Saint Maximilian to offer our very lives to you. Through Christ our Lord.
Communion Antiphon: Cf. Jn 15: 13
Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends, says the Lord.
Prayer after Communion
We pray, O Lord, that, renewed by the Body and Blood of your Son, we may be inflamed with the same fire of charity that Saint Maximilian received from this holy banquet. Through Christ our Lord.
Meditation
“Treat him like a pagan or a tax collector.” It would be tempting to quickly tap into the hatred that the Jews held against the Gentiles and Tax collectors. But how did Jesus himself treat the Gentiles and the tax collectors? Forgiveness flows from God’s identity as loving and compassionate. Thus, forgiveness is a God-given gift. Jesus offers several pathways towards reconciliation, and forgiveness is indispensable. When Jesus met Matthew, the tax collector, he invited him to follow him. When Jesus met Zacchaeus, the tax collector, he asked for an encounter in Zacchaeus’s house where remorse, repentance, reparation and change happened. A Heart that persists on the pathway of forgiveness encounters a Kairos moment when an offender yearns for forgiveness. Too many families, homes, institutions, and nations suffer division because people do not walk on the path of forgiveness.