St. Maximilian Kolbe

Sorry I haven't posted in so long!! Things have been busy with new baby and everything.
Maximilian Kolbe is today's saint because I'm in Confirmation class with my best friend and her saint she's picked is Maximilian Kolbe.
He was born in part of the Russian Empire in 1894, also a modern saint (you can tell I'm into modern saints by now) and his birth name was Rajmund Kolbe. His mother worked as a midwife and also sold vegetables and his father was executed for fighting for independence of Poland. Rajmund was very devoted to the Blessed Virgin and when he was a child, he had a vision that Mary appeared to him holding a white crown, for purity, and a red crown, for martyrdom. She asked him which he would choose and he said he would have both. He became a Franciscan in 1914 and became a priest four years later. During the war, he had a great respect for Jews and hid them and gave them food. During WWII, he hid 2,000 Jews in his monastery. He was caught by the Gestapo in 1941 and taken to Auschwitz in May. While there, 3 prisoners escaped from the concentration camp. There was a custom in the camps that is someone escaped, other prisoners would be punished to keep them from trying to escape. So, 10 men were chosen to be starved in a small cell underground. One man, named Franciszek Gajowniczek, had a wife and children. He cried out for them and Kolbe took sympathy on him and offered to take his place. The guards thought he was crazy but consented. He celebrated Mass with the other 9 prisoners in the cell. Their bread that was their food was unleavened, so he could use it for the Eucharist. Some guards were soft-hearted and volunteered wine to use occasionally. After 2 weeks, all the other men had died and Kolbe was still alive and praying and singing hymns. The other guards needed the bunker for other purposes, so they injected him with lethal carbolic acid. He quietly held out his arm and died on August 14, 1941. He was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1982 and Franciszek Gajowniczek was present at the ceremony. He is the patron saint of drug addiction, families, prisoners, and the pro-life movement. 

Maximilian Kolbe

Franciszek Gajowniczek

St. Blaise

This is the blessing of the throat with the St. Blaise candle

St. Blaise

St. Blaise is the patron saint of throat ailments, so pray to him when you have a sore throat! He was a bishop in Armenia. There is not much known about St. Blaise, but legends say that he became the patron of throat illnesses when a young boy came to him with a fishbone stuck in his throat. He was about to die when St. Blaise healed him. He also helped animals. There was a Christian persecution going on at the time, and God told him to hide in the mountains so he wouldn't be killed. Hunters in that area found him in a cave, walking among sick wild animals, who were being cured. For being a Christian, he was martyred by the governor. Today is his feast day, February 3. In the Catholic Church, at Mass today, the priests will have a strangely shaped blessed candle that they place around the throats of anyone who would like to have their throat blessed. There is usually a red ribbon on the end of the candle, to represent St. Blaise's crown of martyrdom. Then they say a short prayer to St. Blaise with the candle on your throat: "Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr, may God deliver you from every disease of the throat and from every other illness, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

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Baltimore Catechism Questions

I'm learning to memorize several catechism questions. These are the ones I'm working on now:

CCC #161: the chief attributes of the catholic church are authority, infallibility, and indefectibility. They are called attributes because they are qualities perfecting the nature of the church.
CCC #162: by the authority of the church is meant that the pope and bishops, as lawful successors of the apostles, have the power from Christ Himself to teach, sanctify, and govern the faithful in spiritual matters.
CCC #163: By the infallibility of the church is meant that the church, by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost, cannot err when it teaches or believes a doctrine of faith or morals.


- Posted from my iPod

St. John Neumann

St. John Neumann

Today is the feast of St. John Neumann. He was born in Bohemia in 1811. He was going to be ordained and was looking forward zealously for it, but soon the bishop decided that Bohemia was overloaded with ordained men. The same was everywhere he wrote. So he learned English at a factory he worked at, and wrote to bishops in America. They agreed to ordain him into the priesthood, but he would have to leave his home forever to travel to a new place. But he did it in order to become a priest. He went to New York. There they needed priests, for there were only 36 priests, including him, for 200,000 faithful Catholics. His parish was including West New York, from Lake Ontario to Pennsylvania. He didn't have a church, but he traveled over mountains and across plains to visit Catholics and have Mass at their dining room tables. He became Philadelphia's bishop in 1852. He organized a Catholic school system for the first time. By his hands, the count of Catholic schools soared from 2 to 100! He could hear confessions in 6 different languages. He sacrificed and lived in poverty so he could better serve God. One day he was in Germany while it was raining and arrived at his host's house soaked. When his host brought up the suggestion of changing his shoes so he would be more dry and comfortable, Bishop Neumann said, "The only way I could change my shoes is by putting the left one on the right foot and the right one on the left foot. This is the only pair I own." He died on January 5, 1860. 

Saint Genevieve

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been on Christmas break for 2 weeks and haven't had school.

Today I'm doing Saint Genevieve because today is her feast day. She was born in 422 near Paris. When she was seven, St. Germain came to her town to fight against a heresy that was going around. I think those evangelists are kind of like doctors. The heresy was going around, like a sickness, and St. Germain is like a doctor. Anyway, he saw Genevieve and foretold that her future holiness. The bishop led her to the local cathedral and consecrated her to God. Attila the Hun was reported to be headed towards Paris, and the whole town was about to flee the area, but Genevieve stopped them and persuaded the townspeople to fast and pray, assuring them that if they did so, God would protect them. This was the case, because word came by that Attila had changed course and would not be coming through Paris. St. Genevieve performed works of charity and she died in 512. Her feast day is today, January 3. She is the patron saint of Paris.

St. Anastasia

St. Anastasia

My patron saint, St. Anastasia was born around the Diocletian Persecution to a pagan father and a devout Christian mother. Her mother baptized her when she was a baby. She married a pagan man named Publius and he loved her very much, but when he found out she was a Christian, he kept her confined to the house and treated her like a slave. She cheerfully accepted this, glad she could suffer for Christ. Soon Publius was called by the king of Persia and commanded others to mistreat his wife and that he wouldn't care if he found her dead when he returned. Anastasia used this time, among her persecutions, to encourage Christians in prison and dying for their faith. She was sent to Diocletian himself, who ordered her to sacrifice to the pagan gods, but when she refused, the emperor shut her up in prison, meaning to starve her to death, but she miraculously survived. She was finally burned at the stake in the year 460. Her feast day is December 25, Christmas.