Hey, I'm New Here

[Monica]

then you MUST stop pulling up sites owned by ex-Catholic, non-Catholic or otherwise.

Try to find a Catholic site, and then ask us a question about what we REALLY believe.

We will be here for years re-hatching all the same stuff for not. These are just either confused or lying people.

Please please. Use the Catechism link posted and then ask a question about what we really teach.

Ex Catholics will only tell you what they "think" we teach (otherwise, if they really knew, then they wouldn't be "ex").

all right, i'll try ;)

[Monica]

Oh, and God Bless you Monica for teaching Kindergarten!!!!!!

I field based and student taught in the fourth grade and LOVED it!!!!!

However, I can be put in any grade from 1-8.  I give props for ALL teachers, but especially the kindergarten teachers!!!!!! B)

God Bless you!!!!

I am working part-time in Kinbdergarten (the one attached to the local Congregational Church), but it's not for me,, i'm actually aiming at teaching children in mi8ddle school grades (5-7)!

God Bless!

[Jake Huether]

all right, i'll try

Coolio!

I can't wait! Ooooo! I'm excited for you.

It is just so joyful to see someone find the Catholic Church. Not saying that your gunna convert (though I wish all people would). But it's just so kewl to hear someone go, "Ahhh, that's what you teach!".

If you have a particular topic, We can also help you find it in the Catechism / Church doc's / Catholic sources.

Mary,

Saints,

Purgatory,

Eucharist,

Statues,

etc.

What bothers you the most about us? ;)

[Monica]

So the pope was all for Hitler huh? Have you ever heard of St. Maximillian Kolbe? Probably not but he was a Catholic Priest that died in a concentration camp. He took the place of another guy that had family. St. Max died so the other guy could live..had the Catholic Church approved of such treatment then St. Maximillian probably wouldnt of been in a concentration camp to begin with.

OK, after debating with myself for a while, i've decided to ask you for more information abut that Max Kolbe guy. I say debating because (please understand) i sorta have to suppress my...to be honest, let's call it horror....at reading about a catholic saint! (Shudder). But curosity was greater...

so....i'll just say it....can you tell me more about that max kolbe?

[Monica]

i posted a thread in open mic called "all-male priesthood", prease post responses!

thanks and god bless!!

[Jake Huether]

OK, after debating with myself for a while, i've decided to ask you for more information abut that Max Kolbe guy. I say debating because (please understand) i sorta have to suppress my...to be honest, let's call it horror....at reading about a catholic saint! (Shudder). But curosity was greater...

so....i'll just say it....can you tell me more about that max kolbe?

Here's what I got from

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=370

Maximilian was born in 1894 in Poland and became a Franciscan. He contracted tuberculosis and, though he recovered, he remained frail all his life. Before his ordination as a priest, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement devoted to Our Lady. After receiving a doctorate in theology, he spread the Movement through a magazine entitled "The Knight of the Immaculata" and helped form a community of 800 men, the largest in the world.

Maximilian went to Japan where he built a comparable monastery and then on to India where he furthered the Movement. In 1936 he returned home because of ill health. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was imprisoned and released for a time. But in 1941 he was arrested again and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.

On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner's escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father. And he was the last to die, enduring two weeks of starvation, thirst, and neglect. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1981. His feast day is August 14th.

[cmotherofpirl]

MAXIMILIAN KOLBE

Also known as

Apostle of Consecration to Mary; Massimiliano Maria Kolbe; Maximilian Mary Kolbe; Raymond Kolbe

Memorial

14 August

Profile

Second of three sons born to a poor but pious Catholic family in Russian occupied Poland. His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers. His father, Julius, later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in Pilsudski's army, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914. His mother, Marianne Dabrowska, later became a Benedictine nun. His brother Alphonse became a priest.

Raymond was known as a mischievous child, sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life.

I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both. -Saint Maximilian

He entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow, Poland in 1907 where he excelled in mathematics and physics. For a while he wanted to abandon the priesthood for the military, but eventually relented to the call to religious life, and on 4 September 1910 he became a novice in the Conventual Franciscan Order at age 16. He took the name Maximilian, made his first vows on 5 September 1911, his final vows on 1 November 1914.

Studied philosophy at the Jesuit Gregorian College in Rome from 1912 to 1915, and theology at the Franciscan Collegio Serafico in Rome from 1915 to 1919. On 16 October 1917, while still in seminary, he and six friends founded the Immaculata Movement (Militia Immaculatae, Crusade of Mary Immaculate) devoted to the conversion of sinners, opposition to freemasonry (which was extremely anti-Catholic at the time), spread of the Miraculous Medal (which they wore as their habit), and devotion to Our Lady and the path to Christ. Stricken with tuberculosis which nearly killed him, and left him in frail in health the rest of his life. Ordained on 28 April 1918 in Rome at age 24. Received his Doctor of Theology on 22 July 1922; his insights into Marian theology echo today through their influence on Vatican II.

Maximilian returned to Poland on 29 July 1919 to teach history in the Crakow seminary. He had to take a medical leave from 10 August 1920 to 28 April 1921 to be treated for tuberculosis at the hospital at Zakpane in the Tatra Mountains. In January 1922 he began publication of the magazine Knight of the Immaculate to fight religious apathy; by 1927 the magazine had a press run of 70,000 issues. He was forced to take another medical leave from 18 September 1926 to 13 April 1927, but the work continued. The friaries from which he had worked were not large enough for his work, and in 1927 Polish Prince Jan Drucko-Lubecki gave him land at Teresin near Warsaw. There he founded a new monastery of Niepokalanow, the City of the Immaculate which was consecrated on 8 December 1927. At its peak the Knight of the Immaculate had a press run of 750,000 copies a month. A junior seminary was started on the grounds in 1929. In 1935 the house began printing a daily Catholic newspaper, The Little Daily with a press run of 137,000 on work days, 225,000 on Sundays and holy days.

Not content with his work in Poland, Maximilian and four brothers left for Japan in 1930. Within a month of their arrival, penniless and knowing no Japanese, Maximilian was printing a Japanese version of the Knight; the magazine, Seibo no Kishi grew to a circulation of 65,000 by 1936. In 1931 he founded a monastery in Nagasaki, Japan comparable to Niepokalanow. It survived the war, including the nuclear bombing, and serves today as a center of Franciscan work in Japan.

In mid-1932 he left Japan for Malabar, India where he founded a third Niepokalanow house. However, due to a lack of manpower, it did not survive.

Poor health forced him to curtail his missionary work and return to Poland in 1936. On 8 December 1938 the monastery started its own radio station. By 1939 the monastery housed a religious community of nearly 800 men, the largest in the world in its day, and was completely self-sufficient including medical facilities and a fire brigade staffed by the religious brothers.

Arrested with several of his brothers on 19 September 1939 following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Others at the monastery were briefly exiled, but the prisoners were released on 8 December 1939, and the men returned to their work. Back at Niepokalanow he continued his priestly ministry, The brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi. For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941.

On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards. His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead. The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Mass and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine.

In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner. Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children was chosen to die for the escape. Maximilian volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished - in service.

Born

7 January 1894 at Zdunska Wola, Poland as Raymond Kolbe

Died

14 August 1941 by lethal carbonic acid injection after three weeks of starvation and dehydration at Auschwitz; body burned in the ovens and ashes scattered

Beatified

17 October 1971 by Pope Paul VI; his beatification miracles include the July 1948 cure of intestinal tuberculosis of Angela Testoni, and August 1950 cure of calcification of the arteries/sclerosis of Francis Ranier

Canonized

10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II; declared a martyr of charity

Patronage

drug addiction, drug addicts, families, imprisoned people, journalists, political prisoners, prisoners, pro-life movement

Images

Gallery of 12 images (246 kb) related to Saint Maximilian

Storefront

[Jake Huether]

OK, after debating with myself for a while, i've decided to ask you for more information abut that Max Kolbe guy. I say debating because (please understand) i sorta have to suppress my...to be honest, let's call it horror....at reading about a catholic saint! (Shudder). But curosity was greater...

so....i'll just say it....can you tell me more about that max kolbe?

I'm sorry Monica, I just have to say.

I understand that you are scared of reading the Catholic Saints. But I've read the lives of them (several of them, not all), and if you haven't - you MUST. It is SOOO inspiring to read about them.

There are actually several Saints who's bodies have remained intact (incorrupt) after serveral HUNDRED years!

One of my favorite:

St. Germaine Cousin

When Hortense decided to marry Laurent Cousin in Pibrac, France, it was not out of love for his infant daughter. Germaine was everything Hortense despised. Weak and ill, the girl had also been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Hortense replaced the love that Germaine has lost when her mother died with cruelty and abuse.

Laurent, who had a weak character, pretended not to notice that Germaine had been given so little food that she had learned to crawl in order to get to the dog's dish. He wasn't there to protect her when Hortense left Germaine in a drain while she cared for chickens -- and forgot her for three days. He didn't even interfere when Hortense poured boiling water on Germaine's legs.

With this kind of treatment, it's no surprise that Germaine became even more ill. She came down with a disease known as scrofula, a kind of tuberculosis that causes the neck glands to swell up. Sores began to appear on her neck and in her weakened condition to fell prey to every disease that came along. Instead of awakening Hortense's pity this only made her despise Germaine more for being even uglier in her eyes.

Germaine found no sympathy and love with her siblings. Watching their mother's treatment of their half-sister, they learned how to despise and torment her, putting ashes in her food and pitch in her clothes. Their mother found this very entertaining.

Hortense did finally get concerned about Germaine's sickness -- because she was afraid her own children would catch it. So she made Germaine sleep out in the barn. The only warmth Germaine had on frozen winter nights was the woolly sheep who slept there too. The only food she had were the scraps Hortense might remember to throw her way.

The abuse of Germaine tears at our hearts and causes us to cry for pity and justice. But it was Germaine's response to that abuse and her cruel life that wins our awe and veneration.

Germaine was soon entrusted with the sheep. No one expected her to have any use for education so she spent long days in the field tending the sheep. Instead of being lonely, she found a friend in God. She didn't know any theology and only the basics of the faith that she learned the catechism. But she had a rosary made of knots in string and her very simple prayers: "Dear God, please don't let me be too hungry or too thirsty. Help me to please my mother. And help me to please you." Out of that simple faith, grew a profound holiness and a deep trust of God.

And she had the most important prayer of all -- the Mass. Every day, without fail, she would leave her sheep in God's care and go to Mass. Villagers wondered that the sheep weren't attacked by the wolves in the woods when she left but God's protection never failed her. One day when the rains had swollen the river to flood stage, a villager saw the river part so that she could cross to get to the church in time for Mass.

No matter how little Germaine had, she shared it with others. Her scraps of food were given to beggars. Her life of prayer became stories of God that entranced the village children.

But most startling of all was the forgiveness to showed to the woman who deserved her hatred.

Hortense, furious at the stories about her daughter's holiness, waited only to catch her doing wrong. One cold winter day, after throwing out a beggar that Germaine had let sleep in the barn, Hortense caught Germaine carrying something bundled up in her apron. Certain that Germaine had stolen bread to feed the beggar, she began to chase and scream at the child. As she began to beat her, Germaine opened her apron. Out tumbled what she had been hiding in her apron -- bright beautiful flowers that no one had expected to see for months. Where had she found the vibrant blossoms in the middle of the ice and snow? There was only one answer and Germaine gave it herself, when she handed a flower to her mother and said, "Please accept this flower, Mother. God sends it to you in sign of his forgiveness."

As the whole village began to talk about this holy child, even Hortense began to soften her feelings toward her. She even invited Germaine back to the house but Germaine had become used to her straw bed and continued to sleep in it. There she was found dead at the age of 22, overcome by a life of suffering.

With all the evidence of her holiness, her life was too simple and hidden to mean much beyond her tiny village -- until God brought it too light again. When her body was exhumed forty years later, it was found to be undecayed, what is known as incorruptible. As is often the case with incorruptible bodies of saints, God chooses not the outwardly beautiful to preserve but those that others despised as ugly and weak. It's as if God is saying in this miracle that human ideas of beauty are not his. To him, no one was more beautiful than this humble lonely young woman.

After her body was found in this state, the villagers started to speak again of what she had been like and what she had done. Soon miracles were attributed to her intercession and the clamor for her canonization began.

In this way, the most unlikely of saints became recognized by the Church. She didn't found a religious order. She didn't reach a high Church post. She didn't write books or teach at universities. She didn't go to foreign lands as a missionary or convert thousands. What she did was live a life devoted to God and her neighbor no matter what happened to her. And that is all God asks.

In Her Footsteps:

Do you make excuses not to help others because you have so little yourself? Share something this week with those in need that may be painful for you to give up.

Prayer:

Saint Germaine, watch over those children who suffer abuse as you did. Help us to give them the love and protection you only got from God. Give us the courage to speak out against abuse when we know of it. Help us to forgive those who abuse the way you did, without sacrificing the lives of the children who need help. Amen

[jmjtina]

So, Monica, tell us what you think. We would like to hear your thoughts, especially on the links and St. Max who died in a concentration camp. Your asking, we're answering, what are your thoughts? I'm very curious. B)

Hey, your going for Junior High? So is my other sister! B)

very cool!

Edited October 31, 2003 by jmjtina

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

About the Jesuits, Reformation.org is a joke. I warn you not to trust a site that calls St. Ignatius "Ignatius of LIEola". I'm not kidding, I've seen it before. Ignatius' conversion is one of the most amazing I have ever heard. There is nothing wrong with the Jesuits. I go to a Jesuit school with six Jesuit teachers and one former Jesuit brother. Many anti-Catholic sources, especially one named after the Reformation, are oppsed to them. Time and time through history the Jesuits are targeted by people opposed to the Church and the reason is easy to see: the Jesuits teach. They touch tons of young people every generation and that scares opponents of the Church who wish to see it destroyed (Check out Voltaire and the Age of Enlightenment). They are also aware that the order was established to lead the counter-reformation or "Catholic Reformation", re-converting large areas of Europe and sending missionaries all over the world.

[BLAZEr]

About the Jesuits, Reformation.org is a joke.  I warn you not to trust a site that calls St. Ignatius "Ignatius of LIEola".  I'm not kidding, I've seen it before.  Ignatius' conversion is one of the most amazing I have ever heard.  There is nothing wrong with the Jesuits.  I go to a Jesuit school with six Jesuit teachers and one former Jesuit brother.  Many anti-Catholic sources, especially one named after the Reformation, are oppsed to them.  Time and time through history the Jesuits are targeted by people opposed to the Church and the reason is easy to see: the Jesuits teach.  They touch tons of young people every generation and that scares opponents of the Church who wish to see it destroyed (Check out Voltaire and the Age of Enlightenment).  They are also aware that the order was established to lead the counter-reformation or "Catholic Reformation", re-converting large areas of Europe and sending missionaries all over the world.

Ummm . . . I'm in line with the Church and I think most (but not all) modern Jesuits stink . . . but all that "Jesuits are evil" stuff is still a bunch of junk . . . The Jesuits of the Reformation period were brave, loyal, holy men of God who stamped out the Reformation Heresies like a centipede on a match stick.

Jesuit oath, pshaw! You can hardly get a Jesuit nowadays to adhere to the Catechism much less an oath of loyalty!

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

I doubt heterodoxy is a Jesuit trend. There are diocesan and non-Jesuit order priests are are (sadly) heterodox too. I think it just depends on the person. I wouldn't say that the Jesuits are heretics.

[hyperdulia again]

The Jesuits do tend toward the intellectual side of libberalism, but it makes sense that they would...read the Age of Louis XIV for why.

[Monica]

WOW.

I hope you all know how much it costs me to say this. It goes against my pride. Really strongly.

But I have to say this. WOW.

What am I talking about? Max Kolbe.

After reading the links you posted (Thanks!), and researching on my own on the Internet, and checking out a book out of the public library called A Man for Others: Maximilian Kolbe Saint of Auschwitz in the Words of Those Who Knew Him (which took a lot, people know me over there, and they were very very very surprised at me checking out a book about a CATHOLIC SAINT!!) i have to say WOW.

I payed special attention to the accounts of his last days, and he seems to be so much like Jesus, giving his life for another man, yet forgiving and being gentle and cheerful.....it blows me away. He was CATHOLIC.

When I started reading about him, in almost gave it up. I mean the man was DEVOTED to MARY. Did such a lot for HER. That seems wrong. But when I read his writings, trying to find, sure i would find, a place that would give him away as worshiping Mary, i was disapointed. In every point, he seems to be gently pointing a finger at Mary, who is stretching out both arms towards her son.

But, oh well, I mean even Catholics have to get SOMETHING right somewhere along the way. Here is one exception. Maybe he was even saved, although he was a Catholic and devoted to Mary.

Again, It costs me a lot of effort and overstepping of pride to say this.

[hyperdulia again]

Monica, you just got what it takes most people years to get re:Christ and Mary.