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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20250814
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UID:13795-1755129600-1755215999@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
SUMMARY:Vigils Reading - St Maximilian Kolbe
DESCRIPTION:A TESTIMONY FROM \nTHE BEATIFICATION PROCESS \nOF ST MAXIMILIAN KOLBE \n◊◊◊ \nFr Kolbe and I worked together in May or June 1941. We were bringing \nsand up from the Sola River. This was some of Auschwitz’s heaviest work\, so our \nsquad had a very hard time indeed. The work itself was very painful; we were \nlightly and very insufficiently dressed\, and yet we had to wade into the cold \nwater to dig the sand. In addition\, the guards beat us cruelly or sometimes \nkilled prisoners outright. From the first time I saw Father Maximilian I was \nstruck by his dignity and calm\, so different from others. In spite of the terrible \nconditions and bad treatment\, he never complained nor did he curse. Instead\, \nhe tried to comfort the other prisoners and lift our spirits. During the three \nweeks we worked together\, I sometimes saw the kapo beat Father Kolbe with a \nbig stick. Each time\, Father Kolbe took it without a murmur. \nThe news of his death was an enormous shock to the whole camp. We \nbecame aware someone among us in this spiritual dark night of the soul was \nraising the standard of love on high. Someone unknown\, like everyone else\, \ntortured and bereft of name and social standing\, went to a horrible death for the \nsake of someone not even related to him. Therefore it is not true\, we cried\, that \nhumanity is cast down and trampled in the mud\, overcome by oppressors\, and \noverwhelmed by hopelessness. Thousands of prisoners were convinced the true \nworld continued to exist and that our torturers would not be able to destroy it. \nMore than one individual began to look within himself for this real world\, found \nit\, and shared it with his camp companion\, strengthening both in this encounter \nwith evil. To say that Father Kolbe died for one of us or for that person’s family \nis too great a simplification. \nHis death was the salvation of thousands. And on this\, I would say\, rests \nthe greatness of that death. That’s how we felt about it. And as long as we live\, \nwe who were at Auschwitz will bow our heads in memory of it as at that time we \nbowed our head before the bunker of death by starvation. That was a shock full \nof optimism\, regenerating and giving strength; we were stunned by his act\, \nwhich became for us a mighty explosion of light in the dark camp night.
URL:https://laycisterciansofgethsemani.org/event/vigils-reading-st-maximilian-kolbe/
CATEGORIES:Vigils Readings
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