Real Life Tribute

So my Thanksgiving plans this year included going to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with my family since it just came out. But see, this was awkward for me because I hadn't yet seen the first one! Or read the books! (I know, utter your groans...).

After returning home from work for the break, I decided to solve this problem of not having seen the first one in preparation for seeing Catching Fire. But first, I had to confront a very real, first-world problem. Where should I use Netflix? On the PS3? Xbox 360? Wii? 3DS? iPhone? iPad? Desktop? Laptop? Blu-Ray player? Wi-fi connected TV? Ultimately, the PS3 won.

Popped some corn... Cracked open a cold beverage (okay, twisted open)...

And then I watched The Hunger Games!

I thought it was pretty good after watching the movie! I felt hipster because I was already into archery before Katniss made it really cool. Even then, after watching the movie I really wanted to shoot my bow again!

Now, remember that I haven't read the books so I don't know how well the movie follows the books, and many often say that the books are always better etc etc etc...

But what intrigued me from watching the first movie was this entire concept of the "Hunger Games" whereby kids are chosen by lottery to compete in a nationally teleivised deathmatch as entertainment and remembrance of some rebellion against the Capitol from the past. And the Games are advertised as a good and necessary thing by the government. x_x

While there are so many themes and elements about the story that I could blog about, I really want to focus on just one. It's an important one, not just to us as the movie-watchers or book-readers, but to the setting and people found in Panem as well.

#SpoilerAlert

I think the most striking thing about the story is how Katniss volunteered to be Tribute in place of her sister, Primrose, who was chosen by the lottery to represent their District 12. This was unheard of! Katniss was the first volunteer ever for District 12! And she did this out of protection and love for her sister. That is very apparent. People throughout Katniss' journey to the Arena in preparation for the Games are struck by this. And since I saw Catching Fire, I can now also say that this act of volunteer sacrifice has inspired others throughout the various Districts. Pretty cool. I smell a rebellion coming.

We've seen this sort of act of love...this "take me instead!"...in Hollywood and fictional works pretty often. It's pretty effective in conveying a deeper sense of love and evoking sentiment in the audience.

Katniss' heroic action in volunteering herself reminded me of a fairly modern Catholic saint that I'm growing to love and appreciate more and more. It's fascinating because it involves Nazis, torture, volunteer sacrifice and...it's totally real!

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, ca. 1939

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest from Poland. Some highlights about his life:

• Born in 1894
• The Virgin Mary appeared to him before his First Communion and asked him whether he wanted the graces from a life of purity or martyrdom. He wanted both. 
• He was ordained as a Catholic priest at the age of 24.
• He founded the Immaculata Movement, a movement with devotion to the Virgin Mary asking for her help in the conversion of "sinners, heretics, schismatics, and so on and above all the Masons, and for the sanctification of all persons".
• Started a magazine called Knight of the Immaculate to fight religious indifference
• Tuberculosis nearly killed him and left him frail for the rest of his life
• Spent time in Japan and India to expand the Immaculata Movement

He returned to Poland in the late 1930's. By this time, the Nazis gained power in Europe and began their persecutions of the Jews, Catholics, and anyone else who didn't fit their ideals or who stood in their way. Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was arrested during the Nazi invasion of Poland, but was later released. He was arrested again in 1941 because of his different publications that also began to contain anti-Nazi materials.

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz and was branded as prisoner #16670. 

A prisoner in Fr. Kolbe's barracks escaped from Auschwitz, and protocol called for 10 prisoners from the escaped prisoner's barracks to be killed as retribution. Francis Gajowniczek, a Catholic Polish sergeant, was one of the 10 chosen to die. When chosen, Francis exclaimed that he had a wife and kids. 

An elderly Francis Gajowniczek

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, as an old Catholic priest, stepped forward and volunteered to take the place of Francis. The Nazis accepted the request.

Years later, Francis remembered:

I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me, a stranger. Is this some dream?

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. ... The news spread quickly all around the camp. It was the first and last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz. (qtd. in TheDivineMercy.org)

The 10 prisoners, including Fr. Maximilian, were sent to one of the camp's blocks to be stripped naked and left to starve and die. However, Fr. Maximilian led the group in hymns and prayers, encouraging them despite their dire situation. He was also often seen kneeling and praying calmly whenever he was checked on. After a few weeks, he was the only survivor of the 10. Wanting to clear out the starvation bunker, the Nazis administered a lethal injection of carbolic acid to Fr. Maximilian Kolbe. Apparently some witnesses to the injection said he willingly offered his arm.

He died in August 1941, and his body was cremated in the ovens at Auschwitz.

While I still admire Katniss' heroic actions and desire to give of herself to protect others, especially the vulnerable, her story is fictitious. I haven't finished reading/watching her story, but I'm sure it comes to a glorious conclusion. However! Her story reminds me a lot of St. Maximilian Kolbe, and I couldn't help but to share his story.

What's compelling to me about Fr. Maximilian Kolbe is that he volunteered his life for someone he didn't really know. A stranger. For Katniss, it makes sense because she did so for her dear sister. Given a similar situation, would I even do that? Am I willing to offer my life in someone else's place, especially for those that I love? Do I even desire to willingly offer my life for the betterment of someone else's? While I will most likely not be called to die on purpose in a major way, what are small ways I can die to myself to better love others? These are questions worth reflecting on.

Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was beatified in 1973 by Pope Paul VI and later canonized as a martyr by Pope John Paul II in 1982. Francis Gajowniczek was present at both ceremonies at the invitation of the respective popes.

For tribute and honor, Catholics celebrate His feast day on August 14. He is a patron saint of drug addicts, against drug addiction, of journalists, of prisoners, and for the pro-life movement.

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15: 13)

- JD

Resources and More Info:

St. Maximilian Kolbe / Catholic Online

Saint Maximilian Kolbe / SQPN

St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe / American Catholic

Who Is St. Maximilian? / EWTN

The Ideals and Program of the Knights of the Immacula / Consecration, Militia of the Immaculata

Francis Gajowniczek / Wikipedia

'Greater Love Than This No Man Has', Maximilian Kolbe Exemplifies Divine Mercy In Action / The Divine Mercy

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Photo of The Hunger Games movie poster from The Hunger Games Society blog
Photo of St. Maximilian Kolbe from Wikipedia
Photo of Francis Gajowniczek from Auschwitz.dk

Divine Mercy

Click here to scroll down to instructions on how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

Before explaining what Divine Mercy is, I should define what is "private revelation." If you already have an understanding, then don't click the following link.

What is private revelation...?

First, what is "public revelation?"  Public revelation is what we know about God through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition through the deposit of faith given by Him.  God revealed Himself publicly to the Jewish people, and we know this through reading Scripture in the Old Testament.  From the apostles, we know they passed down what Jesus had taught and revealed to them.  God's final, definitive revelation is His Son, Jesus Christ. With that said, the Catholic Church teaches that public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (emphasis mine):

66 "The Christian economy, therefore, since it is the new and definitive Covenant, will never pass away; and no new public revelation is to be expected before the glorious manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ." (Dei Verbum 4) Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries.

Yes, even if God has revealed everything we need to know about Him in Jesus, our understanding is not completely clear.  Over the course of time, our understanding grows clearer and clearer.  Sort of like going up a river from its mouth where it is muddy and dirty to its source where it is clear.  Or like the sunrise that begins to slowly stretch its rosy fingers over the horizon.

Sometimes God reveals Himself in a very personal way to us.  Or maybe He sends an agent like a saint, an angel, and yes, even His Blessed Mother.  In these instances, He reveals something meant for us personally.  This type of encounter is a "private revelation" which happens all the time, but some individuals may experience a more profound and blatant encounter of God's revelation.  How are we to understand such things?

Again, from the CCC:

67 Throughout the ages, there have been so-called "private" revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church.  They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith.  It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history.  Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church

Christian faith cannot accept "revelations" that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment, as is the case in certain non-Christian religions and also in certain recent sects which base themselves on such "revelations."

So in other words, "private revelation" is okay as long as it does not conflict with what has already been revealed and that it helps us live more fully in what has already been revealed by God.  How can we be sure that "private revelation" doesn't conflict with something?  The teaching authority of the Catholic Church.  Whenever someone makes a seemingly out-of-ordinary claim through "private revelation," the Church will investigate to make sure that it isn't heretical or contradictory to what we already know through the deposit of faith.  And since the Church has been around since Jesus, who better to keep track of the deposit of faith than she?

The other thing I should highlight about "private revelation" is if it is Church-approved, then we, the faithful, should make attempts to gain deeper understandings of what was revealed.  However, if a "private revelation" is not Church-approved, then we are not required or encouraged to pursue it.

For more explanations, go here:
Private and Public Revelation - EWTN
Private Revelation - Catholic Answers
Apparitions/Private Revelations - EWTN

With all that said (if you read it), that leads me to Divine Mercy.  Essentially, Jesus gave us a clearer understanding of His infinite and divine mercy through private revelations given to a Polish religious sister named St. Maria Faustina Kowalska.

Who is St. Maria Faustina Kowalska?

Her original name is Helena, and she was born into a poor, peasant family in Glogowiec, Poland.  She was the third oldest of ten children, and "from childhood she distinguished herself by her piety, love of prayer, industriousness and obedience as well as by her great sensitivity to human misery" (Diary, xv).  At the age of seven, she started feeling the call to religious life.  Her parents were not keen on letting her join a convent, and she tried repressing her desire to join a convent.  But from a vision of the suffering Jesus, she strengthened her resolve to join a convent.  She ended up in the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw.  There, she received the name Sister Maria Faustina.  She completed her novitiate (basically, the novitiate is the newb stage to religious life) and professed her perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience after five years of being in the convent.  She worked in various houses for the Congregation in different locations in Poland, especially as cook, gardener, and doorkeeper.

Sr. M. Elizbaeth Siepak writes in the Introduction of St. Faustina's diary:

To all external appearances nothing betrayed her extraordinarily rich mystical life. She zealously went about her duties, she faithfully observed all the religious rules, she was recollected and kept silent, all the while being natural, cheerful, full of kindness and of unselfish love of neighbor.  

Her entire life was concentrated on constant striving for even fuller union with God and on self-sacrificing cooperation with Jesus in the work of saving souls. (Diary, xvi) 

The Lord also endowed her with many graces and gifts.  These include the gift of contemplation with deep knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy, visions, revelations, the hidden stigmata, the gift of prophecy and reading into human souls, and also the rare gift of mystical espousals.  However, she wrote:

Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God.  ...My sanctity and perfection is based upon the close union of my will with the will of God (Diary, par. 1107)

I'm a fan of that last sentence.  She willed to align her will to that of God's will.

As she grew older, she started having health problems.  And sometimes she experienced a profound spiritual suffering known as the "dark night" where a soul doesn't receive any consolation from God as if He has abandoned the soul.  She grew very sick and eventually died in 1938 at the age of 33.

Because of the life she led, her personal piety and obedience to God's will, and passionately serving as a conduit to God's message of mercy, she was canonized as a saint by Blessed Pope John Paul II in April 2000.

How was Divine Mercy revealed?

She kept a diary, which is out in publication.  Apparently Jesus revealed to her that she should keep one.  I started reading it a while ago, but haven't yet finished it.  In it, she shares her daily struggles with religious life and life in general, but most intriguingly she wrote down what Jesus said to her whenever He appeared. It's almost conversational, as if St. Faustina was really talking to and listening to someone.  Or rather...Someone.

Through these private revelations, it is clear that Jesus was with her throughout her life, especially during her times of suffering.  Though He spoke to her a lot, I want to focus on His message of Divine Mercy.

Again, from the Intro, Sr. M. Elizabeth Siepak summarizes Jesus' mission for St. Faustina:

"Today, I am sending you with My mercy to the people of the whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal it, pressing it to My merciful Heart" (Diary, par. 1588)

"You are the secretary of My mercy; I have chosen you for that office in this and the next life" (Diary, par. 1605) ... "to make known to souls the great mercy that I have for them, and to exhort them to trust in the bottomless depth of My mercy" (Diary, par. 1567) 

Her mission is to remind us about the truths of God's merciful love for us as well as providing us with new ways to have a devotion to The Divine Mercy.  There are several ways to have a devotion to Divine Mercy as revealed to St. Faustina by Jesus. They are as follows:

• The Divine Mercy Image (seen at the top of this post), which is a painting of a vision St. Faustina had of Jesus.  The elements of the image has special meanings.
• The Feast of Divine Mercy, which is the day that Jesus specified to focus on the shelter of His Mercy. He specifically said that the second Sunday of the Easter season (ie. the Sunday after Easter) is to be the Feast of Divine Mercy.  Blessed Pope John Paul II declared in his homily at the canonization of St. Faustina that the second Sunday of Easter will be known as "Divine Mercy Sunday"
• The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which is a prayer of atonement and appeasement of God's wrath dictated to St. Faustina by Jesus
• The Novena to Divine Mercy, which is a 9-day recitation of the Chaplet in preparation for the Feast of Divine Mercy or for whatever petitions by the faithful
• The Hour of Mercy, which Jesus specified as the third hour whereby the faithful should focus and immerse themselves in his Mercy

More info about each can be found in the intro of her diary by Sr. M Elizabeth Siepak or at DivineMercy.org.

Pilpino Papal Potential

Yeah, a new pope has already been elected...but I just wanted to post this because...

1. He's Filipino
2. Cardinal Tagle was my dad's high school class' valedictorian
3. He's probably still going to in the running for the next Conclave down the road

Pinoy ako, pinoy tayo.

- JD