Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr (†1941 Auschwitz – Poland). This year his memorial gives way to Sunday. He consecrated himself to the Lord in the Order of Friars Minor. A great Marian devotee, he founded the Militia of the Immaculata. When the Nazi’s invaded his native Poland, he was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, Germany. There, he offered himself in the place of another prisoner condemned to death by starvation, thus died a martyr in 1941.
Mass Readings
First Reading – Dt 10:12-22
Moses said to the people: “And now, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you but to fear the LORD, your God, and follow His ways exactly, to love and serve the LORD, your God, with all your heart and all your soul, to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD which I enjoin on you today for your own good? Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it. Yet in His love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them as to choose you, their descendants, in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked. For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods, the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who has no favorites, accepts no bribes; who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him. So you too must befriend the alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and Him shall you serve; hold fast to Him and swear by His name. He is your glory, He, your God, who has done for you those great and terrible things which your own eyes have seen. Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong, and now the LORD, your God, has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20 (R.12a)
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For He has strengthened the bars of your gates;
He has blessed your children within you. R.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat He fills you.
He sends forth His command to the earth;
swiftly runs His word! R.
He has proclaimed His word to Jacob,
His statutes and His ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
His ordinances He has not made known to them. Alleluia. R.
Gospel – Mt 17:22-27
As Jesus and His disciples were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And they were overwhelmed with grief. When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax approached Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes,” he said. When he came into the house, before he had time to speak, Jesus asked him, “What is your opinion, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth take tolls or census tax? From their subjects or from foreigners?” When He said, “From foreigners,” Jesus said to him, “Then the subjects are exempt. But that we may not offend them, go to the sea, drop in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up. Open its mouth and you will find a coin worth twice the temple tax. Give that to them for Me and for you.”
Featured Saints
Blessed Elisabetta Renzi, virgin (†1859). Foundress of the Pious Teachers of Our Lady of Sorrows.
St. Fachanan, Bishop and abbot (†sixth century). He founded a monastery renowned for the teaching of sacred and human sciences in the present-day diocese of Ross, Ireland.
St. Dominic Ibáñez de Erquicia, priest and martyr (†1633). Dominican missionary killed in Nagasaki, Japan, by order of shogun Tokugawa Yemitsu.
St. Marcellus of Apamea, bishop and martyr (†c. 390). He was assassinated in the Syrian city of Apamaea by enraged pagans, after he ordered a temple in honour of Jupiter to be destroyed.
St. Arnulf, bishop (†1087). After serving as a soldier, he became a monk and Bishop of Soissons, France. He founded a monastery in Oudenburg, Belgium, where he died.
Bl. Anthony Primaldi and 800 companions, martyrs (+1480). Beheaded by the Ottomans in Otranto, Italy, during the persecution prophesied by St. Francis of Paola.
St. Francis Shoyemon, martyr (†1633). Catechist and assistant to the Dominican missionaries in Japan.
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