Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr (†1941 Auschwitz – Poland). 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, in German occupied Poland. There, he offered himself in the place of another prisoner condemned to death by starvation, and thus died a martyr in 1941.
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Mass Readings
First Reading – Ez 9:1-7; 10:18-22
The LORD cried loud for me to hear: Come, you scourges of the city! With that I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate which faces the north, each with a destroying weapon in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a writer’s case at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar. Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer’s case at his waist, saying to him: Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and mark a “Thau” on the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it. To the others I heard the LORD say: Pass through the city after him and strike! Do not look on them with pity nor show any mercy! Old men, youths and maidens, women and children–wipe them out! But do not touch any marked with the “Thau”; begin at my sanctuary. So they began with the men, the elders, who were in front of the temple. Defile the temple, he said to them, and fill the courts with the slain; then go out and strike in the city. Then the glory of the LORD left the threshold of the temple and rested upon the cherubim. These lifted their wings, and I saw them rise from the earth, the wheels rising along with them. They stood at the entrance of the eastern gate of the Lord’s house, and the glory of the God of Israel was up above them. Then the cherubim lifted their wings, and the wheels went along with them, while up above them was the glory of the God of Israel.
Responsorial Psalm – Ps 113:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 (R.4b)
R.The glory of the Lord is higher than the skies.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Praise, you servants of the LORD,
praise the name of the LORD.
Blessed be the name of the LORD
both now and forever. R.
From the rising to the setting of the sun
is the name of the LORD to be praised.
High above all nations is the LORD;
above the heavens is his glory. R.
Who is like the LORD, our God, who is enthroned on high,
and looks upon the heavens and the earth below? R.
Gospel – Mt 18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church. If he refuses to listen even to the Church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
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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