Stop 24 of the M.I. Initiative took place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, New Bedford, MA at the weekend Masses on September 11 -12. The pastor, Our Lady of the Angels Province friar – Fr. Conrad Salach, OFM Conv. and the parishioners warmly welcomed the invitation to entrust themselves to the Immaculate Mother of God and become members of the M.I. As they marked the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, they recalled that just as Pope St. John Paul II declared St. Maximilian a saint for a difficult century, we are perhaps more in need of St. Maximilian and the M.I. now in the 21st century.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, in New Bedford, MA

Consistent with our Franciscan charism and tradition of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, our province has been progressing in our efforts to more fully tap into this devotion from our Kolbean heritage, through the example of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, OFM Conv., and the continued efforts of his Militia of the Immaculata’s (M.I.) unconditional consecration to the Immaculate. Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv., who serves as our Province MI Assistant, began our Province M.I Initiative Tour of our pastoral ministries, in May 2o19. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the tour had to be halted as of March 2020.

Given the lifting of many pandemic restrictions, the remainder of the M.I. Initiative Tour has been re-scheduled to resume as follows:

M.I. INITIATIVE SCHEDULE FOR 2021/2022

Stop #30: October 30-31, 2021
Baltimore, MD (Pastorate of St. Casimir at Canton and Patterson Park)

_____________________

Be sure to mark your calendars
and check back as more information will follow about the
First Annual Pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception,
in Washington D.C.,
on Saturday, April 30, 2022.

THE 80^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARTYRDOM OF ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE
(1941 – August 14 – 2021)

Dear M.I. Members,

            As the Covid-19 pandemic winds down in North America, we remember in prayer those who contracted the illness, those who continue to suffer from the virus and those, over four million persons worldwide, who have died on account of the disease. In a special way, we give thanks to the Lord for the sacrifices made by heroic front-line health care and other essential workers who risked, and even lost, their lives to protect us over these eighteen months. After the example of Christ, who laid down his life for us, these dear souls came to know and embody the love of God by laying down their lives for others (see 1 Jn 3).

This year, we commemorate the 80^th anniversary of another heroic act of sacrificial love. On August 14, 1941, St. Maximilian Kolbe was martyred after he had volunteered to take the place of Franciszek Gajwoniczek, the father of a family and a prisoner condemned to die at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Even as Father Kolbe awaited a sure death with fellow prisoners in the starvation bunker, he repeated to them what might be called his axiom for life, “Hatred destroys; love alone creates.” How could he have come to know and live the depths of such love other than through his total consecration to the Immaculate Mother of God? After all, Mary is the creature most completely filled with this love, united as She is to the Holy Spirit as His Spouse. Indeed, the Mother of Jesus, who is Love, is also fittingly venerated as Our Lady of Charity. Molded as an instrument in the hands of the Immaculate, Maximilian’s consecration to Mary was not an end in itself but, rather, a means through Mary of leading all souls to the very source of love, the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The zeal with which Father Maximilian proclaimed the Kingdom of Christ’s Sacred Heart ultimately merited for him the martyr’s crown as, for the first time in the Church’s history, Pope St. John Paul II canonized St. Maximilian Kolbe for his ultimate witness as a martyr, not in defense of the faith, but in the living out of supernatural charity.

To commemorate the 80^th anniversary of St. Maximilian’s martyrdom, the Militia of the Immaculate of Our Lady of the Angels Province is sponsoring the first annual pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, April 30, 2022. This will also be a time to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of St. Maximilian’s canonization (October 10, 1982). So please organize, involve your friars and pastors, drive in groups or rent a bus and come to join us for this special Marian pilgrimage and Mass. Individual groups may plan and schedule their own activities both before and after the Saturday festivities. We look forward to seeing you!

August 14, 2021
Friar Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv.
Our Lady of the Angels Province M.I. Assistant

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Be sure to mark your calendars and check back as more information will follow about the First Annual Pilgrimage to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington D.C., on Saturday, April 30, 2022.

March 1, 2021: Appointed by the Minister General of the Order, Friar Gilson Miguel Nunes, OFM Conv.,  from the Province of St. Francis (Brazil) is the new International Assistant for the M.I.

Read more on our Order’s Website 
Read more about the International Militia of the Immaculate [M.I.]

As with most provinces, Our Lady of the Angels Province also has Delegate to the M.I. In addition to serving as Delegate to the M.I., the Very Reverend Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv. also serves as Provincial Delegate of our Province Delegation of St. Francis of Assisi (Canada), as our Canadian Delegation Vocation Director (vocations.ofmconv.canada@gmail.com), and as the Guardian of our International friary in Ottawa, ON ~ St. André Bessette Friary.

Read more about Friar Jobe and his province work with M.I.

Peace and all good in 2021!

Since I last wrote you to commemorate the founding of the Militia of the Immaculate (October 16, 1917), the world has experienced a second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, on the occasion of the anniversary of St. Maximilian’s birth, I wanted to write again to encourage you and to strengthen the bond that unites us through St. Maximilian and his devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God.
On January 8, 1919, Father Maximilian celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday, having been ordained a Franciscan priest on the previous May 28, 1918. How timely the parallel is for us that, in those days as well, the second and worst wave of their own pandemic (1918 Spanish flu) was coming to an end. Perhaps, Father Maximilian and the other friars in Rome, where he was studying for his doctoral exam in theology, were feeling some sense of relief. Still, the Spanish flu had claimed the most victims in the age group from 20 to 29 and Father Maximilian had already lost two young friends, close confrères with whom he had founded the Militia of the Immaculate: Friar Antoni Głowinski, from Romania, died October 18, 1918 and Friar Antonio Mansi, from Naples, died October 31, 1918. Following the funeral service for Friar Antonio on November 2^nd (All Souls’ Day), Father Maximilian, together with other friars, accompanied the body to the cemetery. Typically, All Souls’ Day in Europe sees cemeteries filled with visitors but, in 1918, the cemetery itself became another victim of the Spanish flu, as Father Maximilian simply writes in his notes, “An automobile with several coffins. The cemetery closed.” Then, Father Maximilian’s own “City of the Immaculate” in Poland was ravaged by the pandemic; of the 70 friars affected, several died.
However, in St. Maximilian’s written notes following spiritual meditation at the time, there is no entry on the significance to be attributed to the pandemic or the anxiety it was inevitably causing. No, his notes are filled with expressions of complete entrustment and utter confidence that all things can be done through the Immaculate. The following meditation notes appear in and around St. Maximilian’s birthday: “Jesus is our love. Mary our hope – you can do all things through her.” (January 4); “Entrust all things to the Immaculata.” (January 18); “Trust her in all things.” (January 21); “Trust in the Immaculata without limits.” (January 26).
St. Maximilian’s filial devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God is unique. Behind every expression of faith in our loving God and Savior, who cares for all in every circumstance of life, there is also implied the conviction that the Immaculate will intercede and insist on our behalf (Ad Iesum per Mariam). Even at Auschwitz, this can undoubtedly be read into St. Maximilian’s letter to his mother on June 15, 1941. In this, the last extant letter written by him, St. Maximilian writes, “All is well with me. Beloved Mama, do not worry for me and for my health, because the good God is in every place and, with great love, He thinks about everyone and everything.”
Let us pray to our loving God, through the Immaculate, for an end to the Covid-19 pandemic and for the consolation of all who have been devastated by it. Let us pray especially that we, as M.I. members, will continue to consecrate ourselves to the Immaculate for the common good, for the betterment of our world and for the conversion and salvation of souls. May the prayers of St. Maximilian accompany and strengthen us in this holy resolve.

Very Reverend Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv.
Provincial Delegate –
Our Lady of the Angels Province Delegation of St. Francis of Assisi (Canada)
Province Delegate –
Militia of the Immaculate (M.I.)

As we are about to celebrate the 103^rd anniversary of the founding of the Militia of the Immaculate by our Franciscan confrère, St. Maximilian Kolbe, I am happily recalling the M.I. Initiative carried out over the last sixteen months in the Franciscan parishes of Our Lady of the Angels Province. Although Covid-19 has interrupted the tour, I was able to visit 22 of our 39 parishes to promote consecration to the Immaculate and enrollment in the M.I. My heart still swells with joy when I think of the enthusiastic congregations who warmly embraced the Initiative and, then, the thousands who decided to make the act of total consecration to Mary and enroll in the M.I.

In contemplating the anniversary of the M.I during this pandemic, I could not help but think back to the 1918-1920 flu pandemic which, like Covid-19, was also driven by a respiratory virus. One of the worst pandemics in human history, its four waves infected 500 million people, a third of the world’s population at the time. Sadly, according to the estimates, the virus took the lives of between 17 and 50 million people. St. Maximilian was ordained a Franciscan priest in Rome on April 28, 1918, during the pandemic’s first wave, and he celebrated his first Christmas as a priest in Rome just as the second and worst wave of the pandemic ended. He returned to Poland in July of 1919 just after the third wave and he was teaching in Krakow during the pandemic’s fourth and final wave in 1920. According to the statistics, the pandemic claimed 466,000 victims in Italy and between 200,000 and 300,00 in Poland. Nevertheless, upon examining St. Maximilian’s letters and other writings, I could not find any references or reflections on the tragic losses caused by the pandemic. This was all the more surprising given that, since his 1917 diagnosis, St. Maximilian was suffering from tuberculosis, an underlying condition whose side effects include difficulty breathing.

At the same time, however, we cannot lose sight of St. Maximilian’s intense focus and sense of mission already animated by an ardent love of the Lord and His Blessed Mother. Having founded the M.I. in 1917 to combat the evils present in the world, St. Maximilian intended by the consecration or entrustment to the Immaculate that he and, indeed, all M.I. members would offer themselves totally to the Blessed Mother as instruments in Her hands to bring about the salvation of all and thereby lead them ever closer to the source of Love, the Sacred Heart. Although St. Maximilian’s writings do not contain direct references to the 1918 flu pandemic, it is curious that, when Father Maximilian celebrated Christmas Mass that year, he noted in the Mass register the following intention: Pro amore usque ad victimam (For love even unto victimhood). By “victimhood” Father Maximilian may well have intended the lengths to which he was committed to sacrifice for the work of the Immaculate but I believe it is also possible that St. Maximilian thought for a moment, “If, in pursuit of Love, I fall victim, even as a result of the pandemic, then so be it.” Thus, his apostolic zeal was already heroic, standing him in good stead for his battle with the evil of Nazism he would later experience in Poland and, especially, at Auschwitz.

As we celebrate the 103^rd anniversary of the M.I., I send you all my warmest greetings of peace and every good. May St. Maximilian pray for us, through the Immaculate, to Our Lord for the grace that the Covid-19 pandemic cease, that the sick regain their health and that those who have died may rest in peace.

~Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv.
Our Lady of the Angels Province M.I. Assistant

The following article has been shared by our Province Delegate to the Militia of the Immaculate (M.I.) ~ Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv.:

From our Order’s Website: “300 Years as the Principal Patroness of the Order”

On May 7, 2020 the Order marked three hundred years since the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, was declared the principal patroness of our Order. That declaration was made by decree of the 156^th General Chapter (May 1719) and approved by Pope Clement XI on May 7, 1720. To celebrate this significant anniversary, our new General, Friar Carlos Trovarelli, presided at a Mass in Rome at the Basilica of Santi Apostoli, still closed because of Covid-19. After the Mass, Friar Carlos renewed “today and forever” (oggi e per sempre) the consecration of the entire Order to the Blessed Virgin Mary, invoked under the title of the Immaculate Conception (see the Order’s website for the beautifully detailed prayer of entrustment).

The Order’s Communications Office recounts that what occasioned this joyous commemoration was a letter which our General received from one of the oldest friars in the Order, Friar Oreste Casaburo (age 94) of the Neapolitan province. In a letter to the General, Friar Oreste reported that he had made a happy discovery last year when he found an article by St. Maximilian Kolbe, entitled “Two Hundred Years Ago” (see The Writings of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, 1271).

In the article, which was written in Japan in May 1934, Friar Maximilian explained that, at the conclusion of the 156^th General Chapter in Rome, it was decided to raise up and establish the Blessed Virgin Mary, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, as the Principal Patroness of the Order. The newly elected General, Friar Carlo Giuseppe Romilli of Bergamo, Italy, together with his definitory, decreed:

“Since its origin and throughout its history, the Order of Friars Minor Conventual has surrounded the Conception of the Blessed Virgin with special manifestations of devotion. Therefore in the footsteps of their fathers, the Venerable Definitory has decreed to establish the Blessed Virgin, under the title of Immaculate Conception, as their main Patroness, in the firmest hope that more and more every day in our Order, devotion and veneration toward the Mother of God and toward the mystery of her Immaculate Conception increase and develop.”

Our Communications Office stated that, in his letter, Friar Oreste underscored: “In Father Kolbe’s day, it was 200 years, now it is 300 years, three centuries.” He invited the Minister General to seize the occasion: “Given this curious but happy coincidence, the idea popped into my head of asking if you might not address to us a few words of comfort during this bitter “virus” situation by way of a “Franciscan prayer” to the Virgin, entrusting your apostles and sons to Her, as our Seraphic Father, St. Francis, once did.” It was very soon after receiving Friar Oreste’s letter that our 120th Minister General decided to accept the proposal and renew forever the consecration of the Order to the Immaculate Conception. The Communications Office ended its report stating: “Once again we encounter the tradition of the Order; we hope and trust in the protection and guidance of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Cf. Constitutions, art. 1, §§ 6-7).”

Since May 2019, in an effort to more fully tap into our Kolbean heritage (Franciscan charism and tradition of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary through the example of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, OFM Conv. and the continued efforts of his Militia of the Immaculata’s “M.I.” unconditional consecration to the Immaculate), Fr. Jobe Abbass, OFM Conv., who serves as our Province M.I. Assistant, had been on an M.I. Initiative Tour of our pastoral ministries.
Friar Jobe has had to postpone the 2020 stops for April and May because of the pandemic limitations, including the closure of the US – Canada (where he resides) Border. He hopes to be able to do resume a new schedule, in June. If he is able to do so, it will be released and published on this site.

Together, let us continue to pray:

USCCB Prayer Resources for the Coronavirus Crisis