The Memorial of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe
Again the Lord's word came to me, saying, "Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; And say, 'The Lord God says to Jerusalem: "Your origin and your birth is of the land of the Canaanite. An Amorite was your father, and your mother was a Hittite. As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren't washed in water to cleanse you. You weren't salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, because you were abhorred in the day that you were born.
"'" When I passed by you, and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you, 'Though you are in your blood, live!' Yes, I said to you, 'Though you are in your blood, live!' I caused you to multiply as that which grows in the field, and you increased and grew great, and you attained to excellent beauty. Your breasts were formed, and your hair grew; yet you were naked and bare.
"'" Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my garment over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you," says the Lord God, "and you became mine.
"'" Then I washed you with water. Yes, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered work and put leather sandals on you. I dressed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I decked you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands, and put a chain on your neck. I put a ring on your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were decked with gold and silver. Your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered work. You ate fine flour, honey, and oil. You were exceedingly beautiful, and you prospered to royal estate. Your renown went out among the nations for your beauty; for it was perfect, through my majesty which I had put on you," says the Lord God.
"'" But you trusted in your beauty, and played the prostitute because of your renown, and poured out your prostitution on everyone who passed by. It was his.
Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
That you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done," says the Lord God.'"
Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord, the Lord, is my strength and song; and he has become my salvation." Therefore with joy you will draw water out of the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say, "Give thanks to the Lord! Call on his name! Declare his doings among the peoples! Proclaim that his name is exalted!
Sing to the Lord, for he has done excellent things! Let this be known in all the earth! Cry aloud and shout, you inhabitant of Zion, for the Holy One of Israel is great among you!"
Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?"
He answered, "Haven't you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, And said, 'For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh '? So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don't let man tear apart."
They asked him, "Why then did Moses command us to give her a certificate of divorce and divorce her?"
He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it has not been so. I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery."
His disciples said to him, "If this is the case of the man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry."
But he said to them, "Not all men can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it."
August 14th marks the memorial of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan priest who, in 1941, volunteered to die in place of a stranger at Auschwitz — stepping forward and saying, simply, "I am a Catholic priest." His life was a long preparation for that single, luminous moment of total self-gift.
And then we come to these readings, which circle around the same mystery from different angles.
Ezekiel gives us one of Scripture's most raw and tender images: God finding an abandoned infant, cast out in a field, unwanted, and saying — against all reason — *live*. Notice how the love described here is entirely unearned. Jerusalem didn't attract God's attention through merit or beauty. The beauty came *after* the covenant, not before. God loved first, extravagantly, and then adorned what was loved.
The tragedy, of course, is what Jerusalem did with that love. Trusted in the gift rather than the Giver. Mistook the blessing for the source.
This is not an ancient problem.
Consider how easily we do the same — with our health, our relationships, our gifts. We receive something freely, and slowly, quietly, we begin to act as though we generated it ourselves.
Then Jesus, in Matthew, speaks about marriage and celibacy — two very different vocations that share one root: the willingness to give ourselves completely to something beyond self-interest. Both marriage and consecrated celibacy are, at their core, about covenant. About saying *you* rather than *me*.
Maximilian Kolbe lived that logic to its outermost edge.
The questions to carry today:
Where has God spread his garment over us — and are we still aware of it, or have we stopped noticing?
What would it look like, in an ordinary moment today, to choose *you* over *me*?
And what might we be holding onto that was always meant to be held loosely?