14 August 2020
Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
St. Maximilian Kolbe was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. When a group of prisoners had escaped, the guards planned to execute a group of prisoners in retaliation, and when one Jewish man cried for mercy, for the sake of his wife and children who were still out there somewhere, St. Maximilian volunteered to take his place. For nearly two weeks he and the others languished in a cell, with no food or water. He led the other men in singing songs and praying, and once they had died one by one, only the saint remained. The Nazis came to see if anyone had remained and, finding St. Maximilian alive, they ended his life with a lethal injection.
Here is a heroic example of trust in God and detachment from the world: Kolbe did not know what would become of himself, but he trusted that God would be with him. He stepped out upon the raging waters of death and hate, and he walked with Jesus there. Likewise he bore within him that child-like humility, thinking himself as being no more or less than the man whose place he took in the cell, taking it upon himself to keep the spirits of his fellow prisoners high. No doubt there were times of fear, but never did he allow his fear to be the prevailing wind in the sails of his will, driving him upon the reefs of sin and despair. His heart remained unhardened by unforgiveness and hate, and thus when Death came to take him he was, as the monks of Mount Athos might say, already dead; and so he did not die, but came into eternal life.
Yet it is tragically common in marriage to see hard hearts bearing hatred and resentment for the other, even though each has vowed to love and honor the other until death. St. Maximilian Kolbe was able to forgive his captors, to love his fellow inmates, and yet there are hundreds of thousands of divorces every year in the United States alone. In our Gospel today Jesus forbids divorce as being absolutely contrary to God’s design “…from the beginning…”, and yet we continue to frustrate that design, entering into marriage and then, because of the hardness of our hearts, seeking to tear asunder (yes, tear!) what God has joined, doing incredible violence to one another, to society, and above all to our own children, who now must live with the realty that each of their parents bears hatred for half of who they are.
Like the boat tossed at sea in Sunday’s Gospel, marriage is difficult and spouses can certainly be tossed about by a variety of circumstances that will test their resolve and the strength of their fidelity. A hard heart will break under such pressures, but a humble, living heart, bearing love and all its virtues, will be able to flex with every jarring motion, and move with every buffet and blow. The world will entice us with all manner of fears and temptations to get us to consider leaving the boat, abandoning not merely our spouse, but a part of ourselves (Ephesians 5:28-30). Rather, when we wed, we must recall that God establishes our marriage, and is an integral member of it. He is the keystone of a two-lintel arch, both of which fall without that keystone to lean upon. We must, through detachment and humility, allow Him to fulfill His promise—“I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh,” (Ezekiel 36:26)—that we may not merely love our spouse, but love them as He has loved us, even unto the piercing of His own heart.