Friends,
today we celebrate the feast of Maximilian Kolbe, the great saint of
Auschwitz. A prisoner from Fr. Kolbe’s barracks escaped, and in
retaliation, the Nazi guards picked out ten other prisoners at random
for execution. When one of those chosen broke down in tears, protesting
that he was the father of a family, Kolbe stepped forward and said, “I
am a Catholic priest; take me and spare this man.”
Priests
are called “father” because they are life-givers in the spiritual
order. Spiritual fathers protect their children; they teach them; they
are there for them; and at the limit, they even give their lives for
them. And that’s what we see in today’s great saint.
Jesus
gathered around himself a band of Apostles whom he shaped according to
his own mind and heart and whom he subsequently sent on mission.
Priests, down through the centuries—from Augustine and Aquinas to
Francis Xavier and John Henry Newman to John Paul II and your own
pastor—are the descendants of those first friends and apprentices of the
Lord. They have been needed in every age, and they are needed today,
for the kingdom of heaven must be proclaimed, the poor must be served,
God must be worshipped, and the sacraments must be administered.
Bishop Robert Barren
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