The "Kolbe Thing"
WE'RE GOING IN!! AUGUST 15 - OCTOBER 7
"There is no question that we are living in the most troubled times. Fundamental truths about human life about marriage and the family and about the conscience are being called into question by threatening the lives of individuals and of our society. But we are full of courage because we know that our Lord is with us. He's called us to be His soldiers on the ground, working with Him for the salvation of the world.There is a 54 day Novena beginning on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary which will be completed on October 7. Your prayer would be even more efficacious if you would also take part in that 54 day Novena."
PRAYER AND TRAINING!
I'm Going In!
ST.
MAXIMILLIAN KOLBE
1 Maccabees, Chapter
3, Verse 25
Then
Judas and his brothers began to be feared,
and dread fell upon the Gentiles about them.
The Battle of Beth
Horon was fought in 166 BC between Jewish forces led by Judas Maccabaeus
and an army of the Seleucid Empire under the command of Seron. The rebel army
led by Judas Maccabeus was growing in strength. They had just inflicted a
crushing defeat upon the Seleucid General Apollonius and now they faced the
forces of the Syrian Governor Seron, who was widely overconfident. With
Maccabeus' superior knowledge of the terrain, he prepared his forces to ambush
the larger Seleucid force. Seron had anticipated this and spread out his force,
but the Maccabees exhibited superior tactical skill by decimating the general's
leading unit and killing Seron himself. With their leader dead, the shocked and
disconcerted remnants of the Seleucid army took to the hills and ran. The
stubborn Seleucids refused to give up their slow phalanx-based tactics when
compared to the lightweight and quick Maccabean militia thus always creating
problems for them on the battlefield. Another force was soon sent against Maccabaeus,
which led to the Battle of Emmaus.[1]
St. Maximillian Kolbe[2]
Born Raymond Kolbe in Poland, Jan. 8, 1894, he entered the Conventual Franciscan Order where he was ordained a priest in 1918. Father Maximilian returned to Poland in 1919 and began spreading his Militia of the Immaculata movement of Marian consecration (whose members are also called MIs), which he founded on October 16, 1917. In 1927, he established an evangelization center near Warsaw called Niepokalanow, the "City of the Immaculata." By 1939, the city had expanded from eighteen friars to an incredible 650, making it the largest Catholic religious house in the world. To better "win the world for the Immaculata," the friars utilized the most modern printing and administrative techniques. This enabled them to publish countless catechetical and devotional tracts, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000 and a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million. Maximilian started a shortwave radio station and planned to build a motion picture studio--he was a true "apostle of the mass media." He established a City of the Immaculata in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1930, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide. Maximilian was a ground-breaking theologian. His insights into the Immaculate Conception anticipated the Marian theology of the Second Vatican Council and further developed the Church's understanding of Mary as "Mediatrix" of all the graces of the Trinity, and as "Advocate" for God's people. In 1941, the Nazis imprisoned Father Maximilian in the Auschwitz death camp. There he offered his life for another prisoner and was condemned to slow death in a starvation bunker. On August 14, 1941, his impatient captors ended his life with a fatal injection. Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a "martyr of charity" in 1982. St. Maximilian Kolbe is considered a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement and the chemically addicted. Militia of the Immaculata
Things to
Do:
·
From
the Catholic Culture library, read The Holy
Spirit and Mary,
an explanation of St. Maximillian's Marian theology and Maximillian Kolbe,
Apostle of Mary by
Fr. John Hardon.
·
Offer
a Mass.
·
Say
a rosary for those who suffer in the world today from man's inhumanity.
·
Pray
for an end to abortion, our nation's own holocaust.
·
Read
about Auschwitz and ponder the modern gas chambers
(abortion, euthanasia, public school, CNN, Uncle JOE/Fancy Nancy) in every
state of our Union and resolve to do all that you can to end the killing.
Blessing of Herbs and Fruits[3]
for the Feast of the Assumption
The Church
"baptized" an old pre-Christian belief in the great healing power of
herbs picked in August by instituting a ritual for the blessing of herbs and fruits
on the Feast of the Assumption. Since that time, Christians from both East and
West have blessed herbs and fruit on the Feast of the Assumption in the belief
that these sacramentals provide protection against harm and danger. But this
custom also hearkens back to the Hebrew observance of the harvest, and more importantly, it teaches us something
about our Lady's role in the economy of salvation. Eve foolishly used herbs
(fig leaves) to hide and aggravate her sin, thereby bringing about a disorder
of body and soul (Gen. 3.7). By contrast, Mary, the new Eve whose soul and body
are untouched by sin or the decay of death (as we celebrate on this day),
foreshadows a healing of our corporeal frailties, a healing represented by
herbs.
Likewise, fruits are an
appropriate symbol for the new Eve because she never ate of the forbidden fruit
but brought forth only the fruit of good works and, most importantly, the Fruit of her womb, Jesus Christ. The blessed fruit
thus betokens the fruit of a holy and generous life which we are called to
enjoy from our Lord through the patronage of His mother. In any case the solemn
blessing of herbs and fruits on this day became so popular that in central
Europe August 15 was simply called Our Lady's Herb Day. Usually,
these blessings would take place before Mass and would involve whatever was
brought by the congregation to the church. Afterwards the herbs would be kept
for medicinal use while the fruit would be served at dinner. The following is
one of the special blessings from the Roman ritual that is used for herbs and
fruits on Assumption Day:
O
God, who by Moses Thy servant didst command the children of Israel to carry
their sheaves of new fruits to the priests for a blessing, to take the finest
fruits of the orchards, and to make merry before Thee, the Lord their God:
Kindly hear our supplications, and pour forth the abundance of Thy blessing
upon us and upon these sheaves of new grain, new herbs, and assortment of
fruits, which we gratefully present to Thee and which we bless on this feast in
Thy name. And grant that men, cattle, sheep, and beasts of burden may find in
them a remedy against sickness, pestilence, sores, injuries, spells, the poison
of snakes, and the bites of other venomous and nonvenomous creatures. And may
they bring protection against diabolical illusions, machinations, and
deceptions wherever they are kept or carried, or with whatever arrangement is
made of them: that with sheaves of good works and through the merits of the
Blessed Virgin Mary whose Feast of the Assumption we celebrate, we may deserve
to be lifted up to heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy son, who liveth
and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God unto endless ages.
Amen.
The blessing of herbs and
fruits has also led to the lovely custom of giving and receiving baskets
of fruit on the Feast of the Assumption, a custom which was
especially popular in Sicily.
Blessing
of Nature[4]
August
15th is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and just
as Mary's assumption into heaven signifies her purity of body and soul, so too
does it remind us of her freedom from the curses of the Fall, such as having to
live by the sweat of one's brow on a land that yields only thorns and thistles
(Gen. 3.18,19). It is perhaps for this reason that the Feast or the Octave of
the Assumption was a favorite time for blessing the scene of man's labors,
especially those related to the production of food. In Western Europe, for
example, fields would often be blessed by the parish priest, while in America
and Latin countries Assumption Day is traditionally the occasion for blessing
the fishing fleets of coastal towns. Also tying into this theme of nature is
the German and Austrian time Mary is invoked for assistance or thanked for the
autumn harvest of grains. This period lasts from Assumption Day until September
15, the Feast of the Seven custom of Our Lady's Thirty Days (Frauendreissiger), during which Sorrow of the
Blessed Virgin. Legend states that nature is particularly benign during this
time: snakes do not bite, wild animals do not attack, and food picked within
the thirty days is especially wholesome. Finally, parts of England and Ireland
observe Our Lady's Health Bathing, where bathing in rivers, lakes, the
ocean, or any natural body of water is considered particularly good for one's
health.
Daily Devotions
· Saturday Litany of the Hours Invoking the Aid of Mother Mary
· Offering to the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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