St. Maximilian M. Kolbe – 14 August 2021 – Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady I Chr 14, 3-4, 15-16; 16, 1-2; 1 Cor 15, 54b-57; Lk 11, 27-28. Theme: Where, O death, is your victory” (1 Cor 15) Subtheme: “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts that at which you nursed” (Lk 11).
Licensed to Choose with Truth and a Prayerfully Formed Conscience America has undergone a sea change in culture. Long gone are the words of a Supreme Court Justice:[1] “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a DIvine being,” The spiritual air in America has changed. Ken Starr[2] observes that as a society, America is compartmentalized with outright hostility to faith and the denigration of believers’ moral and religious convictions across America.
Fittingly, Pope Francis compares the Church to a field hospital where emergency care, initial diagnosis, control of infectious diseases, and journey to health begins. I interpret Pope Francis as also subtly pleading for the faithful to think deeply with his imaginative image. Long gone is August 14, 1941 when Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M.Conv., was martyred at Auschwitz, his ashes scattered with millions of other victims, including St. Edith Stein, a genius. Long gone is the persecution of the Church seen in East Central Europe between 1946 and 1989. Our grandparents and parents grew up with this. Pope Francis looks ahead with his visionary encyclical Fratelli Tutti, brothers and sisters all. No one is ever left out.
Today, St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans remains indispensably instructive: “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness” (2, 14-15). Fr. Kolbe lived during German National Socialism and a Soviet style of socialism which brutally stifled any and all protests. Hitler made himself deaf to the inner promptings of truth. He was a guilty criminal. The same applies to Stalin. National Socialists were judged at Nuremberg in 1948; the Soviets not yet. Have no doubt that a new Soviet style exists under Putin who gets away with it and knows it. If you have any doubt, ask our Ukrainians at our neighboring Sacred Heart Parish.
If we continue to be vigilant, America’s churches will continue to enjoy the protections in America. Being vigilant is learning the truth with martyrs as Fr. Kolbe, martyr of charity, and St. Edith Stein, a Jewish convert who became a Carmelite nun, was arrested for being Jewish, then martyred in Auschwitz. “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, solid in your faith” (1 Peter 5, 8-9a).
Sts. Maximilian and Edith Stein met the Lord repeatedly in the wonderous sacrament of the Eucharist, the sacrament in which Jesus continues to love us to the end. To counter the secularist onslaught, let us allow the Eucharistic mystery to awaken wonder in our hearts! St. Clare of Assisi exemplified sublime reverence for the Eucharist. In the Eucharistic mystery, we come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. That is why we receive the Eucharist with a conscience in the best order possible. St. John Henry Newman, the English convert and great Doctor of Conscience, earned moral authority on his genial clarifications about the meaning of conscience and how to recognize a counterfeit conscience. Parents and Catholic teachers, especially, have an unequaled treasure about the subtleties of conscience to best equip their children to live in our secular culture.
The spiritual air in America has changed. The claim that conscience is a free radical is growing, but is not truly Catholic. The false direction needs push back. Catholics join those who seek the truth. Catholics know that we are not the final authority. Truth may appear as shadows as for St. John Henry Newman, but we listen to God deep in our hearts before exercising our conscience by acting. Successive victories in America proves that our freedom is a hard-fought freedom.[3] Freedom of conscience is priceless. Look around the world where public expression of claims to freedom would land us in jail.
A person may never act against convictions that one has arrived at in the moment of acting. If a person has stifled a protest that is from a law written deep in one’s heart, it could be wrong to have arrived at such convictions. Reception of the sacrament of reconciliation is the priceless strengthening.
In America, there will be a constant battle for religious liberty. Hard fought and costly victories, including at the Supreme Court, secured an emerging clarity of principles that makes America the land of the free. Protecting and defending a culture of freedom is a challenge when outright hostility to faith and disparagement of the rights of believers’ moral and religious beliefs is in plain sight. As the culture changes, Catholics contribute to making life in America and in the world more conscious of human dignity, the personal quest for truth, and respect for the primacy of conscience of every individual.
Am I a servant of God or of the State? Duties towards God and duties towards the State often reveal themselves as contraries. Life demands that we make choices. We may be reluctant, but we are not passive to making choices. God helps us to judge how to engage critically the growing secular attitude that religious witness and religious judgments have to be overridden.
Being starved to death without food or water proved Fr. Kolbe’s duties toward God outranked duties towards the State. He joined millions of martyrs and victims whose numbers are increasing and prove that “the Christian is licensed to defer the choice in which we acknowledge that the God revealed by Christ and witnessed in the Scriptures is alone worthy of our adoration and our trust” (Cyril O’Regan).
Fr. Kolbe loved and did not hate the world, the State, or those who were complicit with National Socialism. Fr. Kolbe loved and desired God. He loved Our Lady. He loved learning and the search for knowledge. Always looking ahead, Fr. Kolbe pioneered the power of mass media as an evangelizer and purveyor of truth. What might Fr. Kolbe think of the quest for truth and response of the media today?
At the moment he answered the camp commandant at Auschwitz with “I am a Catholic priest,” Fr. Kolbe exercised freely and openly that he was licensed to choose. He chose to trust and to adore Christ. The commandant, acting in the name of the totalitarian regime, licensed Fr. Kolbe’s execution.
Catholics are licensed to choose, to seek truth, to form conscience, to recognize individual rights, competing views, the need for negotiation and to respect all religions. A breakdown of civility hides a two-edged sword of freedom of religion on one side, while on the other, a secularized society does not always agree with religious judgments. Secular society wants freedom of religion to be policed by law even though law itself is necessarily merely of human origin. If human power is used to override religious judgments, every time believers meet St. Paul: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15).
Most of all, Our Lady’s Assumption is the final victory through our Savior Jesus Christ! At our death, Mary our Mother will be with us and have a place for us. Death will never have the final victory!
In Celebration of My Golden Jubilee of Priesthood Homilies, Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, O.F.M.Conv.[4]
eondrako@alumni.nd.edu
_________________________________
[1] Attributed to Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas.
[2] Ken Starr, Religious Liberty in Crisis (New York: Encounter Books, 2021), 163-173.
[3] In 1914 my grandfather who fought in Balkan wars left Austria-Hungary. He loved America. My father, a World War II veteran, was to be deployed as a translator. Would I have been born and served as a Franciscan priest?
[4] See P. D. Fehlner, Theologian of Auschwitz (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio Press, 2020); E. Ondrako, Rebuild My Church (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio Press, 2021). Fehlner critically engages Fr. Kolbe and Ondrako explains Fehlner in detail.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
August 14, 2021
On August 14th we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe, OFM Conv. This 5-part series introduces a contemporary voiced “St. Max” as himself presenting his message.
On Sunday, August 8, 2021, Our Lady of the Angels Province Vicar Provincial, Fr. Michael Heine, OFM Conv. was on hand at our Syracuse, NY pastoral ministry of Assumption Church, to celebrate the Mass including the Volunteer Commissioning of the FrancisCorps 23.
Our Lady of the Angels Province Vocation Director, Br. Nick Romeo, OFM Conv. was on hand at the August 4th “The Tenth Hour: Bishop’s Vocations Picnic,” held by Diocese of Syracuse Vocations. He joined representatives from several Religious Orders, along with diocesan priests and seminarians, to help promote vocations.
The Diocese of Syracuse held its annual “The Tenth Hour” bishop’s vocation picnic. Young people from around the diocese were invited by their pastors to attend. The evening consisted of food, small group sharing, a panel discussion, a Holy Hour, and an opportunity for the young people to chat with representatives of various religious communities present in the diocese.
{Photo gleaned from the Facebook page of Diocese of Syracuse Vocations}
*Prayerfully consider adding life as a Franciscan Friar Conventual to your own discernment journey. Contact Br. Nick at vocations@olaprovince.org for info.
Pax et Bonum!
August 5, 2021 Dedication and Blessing of “Rua Dom Elias James Manning,”
Valença, Brazil: During his Provincial Visit with the friars of our Province’s Immaculate Conception Custody in Brazil, our Minister Provincial, the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv., took part in another extraordinary event, as the city renamed the street next to the cathedral in honor of our late Franciscan friar-Bishop. +Bishop Elias James Manning, OFM Conv., Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Valença (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil), passed away on October 13, 2019. The dedication was part of the 185th Feast day celebration at Valença Brazil’s Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Glória.
The Unveiling
The Blessing
Message presented at the time, by Fr. James:
Reflection – Bishop Elias Manning, OFM Conv. Dom Elias was my good friend, and my Franciscan brother. I had the honor to be his last Provincial. Dom Elias loved my name “James” because his own name at baptism was “James.” When he first joined the Franciscan Friars, over sixty years ago, he was given the religious name “Elias.” God chose a very appropriate religious name for him, because the prophet Elias was the greatest missionary in the Old Testament. Like the prophet, the missionary friar Elias preached and lived a simple message: We must love God and love our neighbor. Dom Elias as Bishop of Valença became an icon of goodness for everyone to see and love. He lived a simple life in compassionate solidarity with the poor, the sorrowing, the meek, those thirsting for justice, those needful of mercy, the pure of heart, the seekers of peace. Dom Elias radiated the Beatitudes. On behalf of his Franciscan family, I thank you very much for honoring him today in his beloved city of Valença.
Valença City Councilor – Mr. Bernardos Machado, Frei Michel da Cruz Alves dos Santos, OFM Conv. the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv., and Dom Nelson Francelino Ferreira, Bishop of Valença, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Translation from Original Facebook Post of Paróquia São Francisco de Assis:
“Today in Valença a fair tribute to the esteemed Dom Frei Elias James Manning OFM Conv.
A street next to the cathedral took its name. Beautiful and fair tribute! Congratulations to the authorities involved. The sixth bishop of the diocese of Valença was the longest prelate in the diocesan government. He loved his diocesans and even after emeritus he chose to remain living in the diocese. I praise God that I had a father, for he was the one who raised me to the priesthood. The last diocesan priest ordered by him. Simple, shy and extremely humble man.
Dom Elijah, I know you didn’t like these things, but the Lord’s passage between us was so simple and calm that we need to immortalize it, yes.
From heaven to God for us!
Rest In Peace bishop-brother.
Source: Pe. Thiago Toledo
The City of Valença had already renamed its Prefeitura Municipal de Valença Centro Administrativo Secretaria Municipal de Educação [The Education Department] building in honor of +Bishop Elias
Many people visit his tomb daily in the crypt of Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Glória (Our Lady of Glory Cathedral), in Valença
Our Siler City, NC pastoral ministry of St. Julia Catholic Community is a welcoming, multicultural Christian Catholic community in the heart of Chatham County, with a rich parish history. This past year and a half have been tough on parish communities throughout the world, but July 2021 was a big month for the St Julia Catholic Communityas they, and their pastor – Fr. Julio Martinez, OFM Conv. (pictured at right), welcomed a new Deacon and are planning to grow the Middle School, High School and Young Adult Ministry. This vibrant parish provides parishioners and visitors with not only Liturgical and Sacramental celebration opportunities, but Discipleship, Community, Social and Outreach events, as well. This past July 2021, the St. Julia’s Sister Mission and Justice and Peace Committees welcomed Our Lady of the Angles Province Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) Chairman & Friar Julio’s confrere – Fr. Michael Lasky, OFM Conv. – for a conversation about the parish’s social ministry journey, while hearing about Friar Michael’s own journey with JPIC.
At the end of last month, during the evenings of July 26 – 30, 2021, the young people of the parish ages 7-12, were able to join in “Rocky Railway – Jesus’ Power Pulls Us Through” Summer Bible Study. Friar Julio shared some great photos from the week stating, “Our little ones traveled ‘on the train’ for a week and had lots of fun with Jesus too! Our volunteers and catechists are totally awesome!”
Profissão Perpétua de [Solemn Vow Profession] Frei Jesus (center left) and Frei Ricardo Elvis (center right). Pictured at center top is Our Lady of the Angels Province Minister Provincial ~ the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv., who is flanked by the Very Reverend Fr. Ronaldo Gomes da Silva, OFM Conv. (3rd from right – Custódio Provincial) and Frei Michel da Cruz Alves dos Santos, OFM Conv. (2nd from left – Pastor, Paróquia São Pedro e São Paulo), also pictured are Frei Luis Henrique Nascimento Lima, OFM Conv. (far left – Formador aka Custody’s Prefect of Formation), Frei Alexandre do Carmo Souza, OFM Conv. (2nd from right – Parochial Vicar, Paróquia São Pedro e São Paulo), and Frei Flávio Freitas de Amorim, (far right – Vicar Provincial, São Maximilian Kolbe of Brazil)
August 2, 2021: On the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels, two friars of our Custódia Provincial Imaculada Conceição do Brasil (Immaculate Conception Custody in Brazil), Frei Jesus Rodrigues do Amaral, OFM Conv. and Frei Ricardo Elvis Arruda Bezerra, OFM Conv.
professed their Solemn Vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience,
at the hands of our Minister Provincial,
the Very Reverend Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv.,
at Paróquia São Pedro e São Paulo (St. Peter and St. Paul Parish),
in Paraíba do Sul (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
Fr. James (far left), Frei Jesus (center left) and Frei Ricardo Elvis (center right) with the Franciscan Friar Conventual Postulants of Brazil.
Franciscan Feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Portiuncula, Assisi – August 2
Sir 24, 1-4, 16, 22-24; Gal 4:3-7; Lk 1, 26-33. Theme: “God has sent the Spirit of his Son, into our hearts (Gal 4: 6); Subtheme: Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people (Sir 24: 1)
Rebuild My Church:[1] Inspiration, Content and Religious Liberty in the USA
“The Lord gave me such faith in churches that I would simply pray and speak in this way: We adore you, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Your churches throughout the world, and we bless You, for through Your holy cross You have redeemed the world” (St. Francis of Assisi, Testament). As a young man discerning what God was asking of him, he took literally a message from Christ to rebuild the Church. He raised funds and rebuilt three Churches including Our Lady of the Angels of Portiuncula which became his favorite place. It was there that he founded the Order of Friars Minor, the Order of Poor Clares, received a papal blessing that visitors for perpetuity could receive the plenary Portiuncula indulgence, and died within fifty yards on the evening of 3 October 1226.
“Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people (Sir 24: 1).“ I am filled with joy to announce the publication of Rebuild My Church on August 2, the feast. RMC summarizes the contributions of an extraordinarily faithful follower of St. Francis’ Rule of 1223 and his Testament. As St. Francis passed over into God in a transport of contemplation, he invites every spiritual person into this passing over and transport of soul.[2] Rebuild My Church is a tribute to Friar Peter Damian Fehlner, O.F.M.Conv. (1931-2018), his life, thought and original insight into the commonalities in the works of St. Bonaventure (d. 1274), Bl. John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) and St. John Henry Newman (d. 1890).[3]
Fr. Fehlner read the six original chapters and said: ”You have represented the development of my entire life’s thought correctly.” In May 2017, I defended these six chapters and my doctoral committee at Notre Dame gave their approval. Advised to put it down for a while, I continued to expand my appreciation for Fr. Fehlner’s thought faithfully in the book now called Rebuild My Church.
Questions from scholars and conversations with Fr. Fehlner’s closest acquaintances were the prompt to expand the prologue and introduction, to include the Protestant Reformation and resulting changes in the cultural atmosphere, not unlike the cultural polarization of the twenty-first century, the continuity of principles from Bonaventure to Duns Scotus, Vatican II, Charles Taylor’s two-band theory of modernity, and the Franciscan Marian principle as all-inclusive. Chapters 1 and 2 narrate Fr. Fehlner’s life with candor and loyalty. Chapter 1 navigates the twilight of modernity; chapter 2, Fr. Fehlner’s middle voice. Chapters 3 and 4 explain his appropriation of Bonaventure. Chapter 4 is on the Trinity and the Franciscan School today. Chapters 5 and 6 clarify key concepts of the influence of Duns Scotus; chapter 6, Duns Scotus’ Marian principle. Chapter 7 narrates the original discovery of the relationship of Duns Scotus to John Henry Newman. Chapter 8 engages modernity with Newman’s Christology and Mariology. Chapter 9 is Fr. Fehlner’s theological response to the event – “Rebuild My Church,” an escape from the Hegelian web, engaging Heidegger and the doubleness of the gift of modernity. Chapter 10 is why Fr. Fehlner matters, why his theology is prophetic, apocalyptic and aesthetic, his retrieval of the all but disabled Scotistic tradition, diagnoses of forgetting that is sanctioned by the Holy Spirit, remembering deeply and broadly, his new “eyes’ on Duns Scotus’ and Newman’s system of truths.
The feast of Our Lady of the Angels of Portiuncula is fitting to publish Rebuild My Church as a companion volume to Theologian of Auschwitz.[4] Eric and Linda Wolf of Lectio Publishing deserve a shout out for recognizing Fr. Fehlner’s genius in explaining with genial clarity why Fr. Kolbe is a Scotist. In his Testament, St. Francis may surprise some who think he was anti-study: “We should honor and respect all theologians and those who minister the most holy divine words as those who minister spirit and life to us” (Jn 6:64).
Sirach is concise: “Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people” (Sir 24). By reading Sirach and St. Francis’ Testament, his faith in churches, faith in priests who live according to the manner of the holy Roman Church, the holy mysteries of the Most Holy Body and Blood which they receive and which they alone minister to others, and theologians who minister the most holy divine words radiate the Franciscan charism in America when religious liberty is under assault, our entire constitutional order of democratic debate is under challenge and “cancel culture” is powerful and increasingly relentless. Compare the malignment of Duns Scotus with problems in a non-faith context. The unforgiveable offenses in modern thinking: “racist, sexist, anti-gay” are indictments even from thought provoking books that are well documented. To critics, they espouse the wrong ideas.[5] Fr. Fehlner teaches how to use Fr. Kolbe’s Scotistic method in critical engagement with modernity.
The Scotus-Newman connection fills ten chapters of Rebuild My Church. The prologue and introduction prepare the reader to avoid the historical indictment that Duns Scotus was espousing the wrong ideas. Some scholars dismiss Scotistic thought as torturous, while Fr. Fehlner’s incorporation of Scotistic method demonstrates why he concluded that there was a connection between the University of Oxford’s theologians, Bl. Duns Scotus and St. John Henry Newman. To critics, it seemed beyond the pale to think that linking them might have a significant bearing on the future of Catholic theology.
I incorporated insights from many who knew Fr. Fehlner and more than fifty years of heart-to-heart conversations. Rebuild My Church is an accurate portrayal of his critical engagement in a faith context with our post-Christian culture. One may compare his faith context to a non-faith context as Ken Starr’s who shines a bright spotlight on the autonomy principle at the heart of religious liberty in America. An extra layer of constitutional protection exists for all faith communities. Both faith and non-faith contexts have long lists of external reasons that contribute to a post-religious and a post-Christian culture. The non-faith contexts compare to the temporization of Church authorities in the face of the secular invasion, inviting ideas into the Church communities without the competence of leaders to guide them Christianly. These engender collective complicity in creating a post-Christian culture.[6]
Religious freedom; freedom of speech; freedom of the press; and freedom of assembly are under steady erosion of our nation’s commitment. Yet, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son, into our hearts; “You are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” (Gal 4, 6, 7).
Delivered at The Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore by Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, O.F.M.Conv.
eondrako@alumni.nd.edu
________________________
[1] E. J. Ondrako, Rebuild My Church: Peter Damian Fehlner’s Appropriation and Development of the Ecclesiology and Mariology of Vatican II (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio Publishing, LLC, 2021). ISBN 978-1-943901-18-0. www.lectiopublishing.com. Contact Eric and Linda Wolf, publishers.
[2] St. Bonaventure, Itinerarium Mentis in Deum; The Journey of the Mind to God, chapter 7, 3.
[3] E. J. Ondrako, The Newman-Scotus Reader (New Bedford, MA; Academy of the Immaculate, 2016, canonization issue, 2019), chapter 7, 239-389. A concise chart comparing Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and Newman is on 244.
[4] P. D. Fehlner, Theologian of Auschwitz (Hobe Sound, FL: Lectio Publishing, LLC, 2020).
[5] Ken Starr, Religious Liberty in Crisis (New York: Encounter Books, 2021), 169-170.
[6] This aphorism from Cyril O’Regan, my mentor at Notre Dame, interlocks his inclusive thought with Fr. Fehlner’s.
Fr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conventual
Research Fellow Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure, Rome
Visiting Scholar, McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame
August 2, 2021
St. Maximilian M. Kolbe – 14 August 2021 – Vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady
Visit of the Provincial Friar James to the Construction of the Cathedral of Christ Rei
August 5, 2021 Dedication and Blessing of “Rua Dom Elias James Manning,”
