by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 10, 2011 · 5 comments
. . . My posts over the last few weeks have been some of the longest I have written for These Stone Walls. I thank readers for their forbearance and patience, and especially for sticking with these long but important posts. But I think you need a break, and I cannot look the other way while something very important for These Stone Walls is occurring on the Church calendar. Though August 14 is a Sunday this year, and the Sunday celebration takes precedence, it is also the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the inspiration behind These Stone Walls. August 9th is the Feast of St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein, and a saint for whom I have great personal devotion. They died one year apart in prison at Auschwitz, but that is not the end of their story. It’s a story of the triumph of grace over great evil. Please read . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 11, 2010 · 8 comments
. . . Catholics in France, Belgium, Holland and throughout Europe organized to rescue tens of thousands of Jewish children from deportation to the Death Camps. Philip Friedman, in Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust (The Jewish Publication Society, 1980) commended the Catholic bishops of the Netherlands for their public protest about the Nazi deportation of Jews from Holland. In retaliation for those bishops’ actions, however, even Jews who had converted to Catholicism were rounded up for deportation to Auschwitz. . . .
St. Maximilian Kolbe solved the paradox of suffering by offering his own life as a share in the suffering of Christ. This post is an invitation to that great adventure.
A few weeks ago, after posting “The Exile of Father F. Dominic Menna,” I received a message from an Oregon man who described himself as “just [...]
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on April 28, 2010 · 15 comments
. . . On Saturday, April 10, 2010, our friend, Pornchai Moontri was welcomed into the Church when he received the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Father Anthony Kuzia, C.M., conferred the Sacraments in the prison Chapel. The Prison Chaplain, Deacon James Daly and I were witnesses. It was both a joyous and solemn event, but something very special occurred during the Sacrament of Confirmation. When Pornchai stated that “Maximilian” was to be his Confirmation name, Father Kuzia shared with us that just before his ordination to priesthood; he visited and prayed in the cell in Auschwitz where Saint Maximilian was martyred. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on August 11, 2009 · 5 comments
. . . In his stunning and deeply moving book, People of Auschwitz, published in association with the United States Holocaust Museum, Auschwitz survivor and historian Hermann Langbein wrote:
“The best known act of resistance was that of Maximilian Rajmund Kolbe, who deprived the camp administration of the power to make arbitrary decisions about life and death.” In June, 1979, Pope John Paul II knelt on the floor of Cell 18 . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on July 25, 2009 · 3 comments
. . . Like most of the things I cling to for spiritual support, it just sort of showed up one day. I like to think it was handed down to me – in the way important things are handed down by brothers – by Maximilian Kolbe whose reverence for the Immaculate Heart of Mary guided him through life, and death, at Auschwitz. Even when my faith is so diminished and darkened by the prison around me that I believe in little, I believe that promise. Sometimes I can only believe that Maximilian believed – with the very fabric of his life. . . .
by Fr. Gordon J. MacRae on July 23, 2009 · 1 comment
. . . At the very end of his book, Dr. Frankl revealed the name of his inspiration for surviving Auschwitz. He wrote of Sigmund Freud’s cynical view that man is self-serving. And a man’s instinctual need to survive will trump “quaint notions” such as grace and sacrifice every time. For Dr. Frankl, Auschwitz provided the proof that Freud was wrong. That proof is Father Maximilian Kolbe. . . .
