Dialogue and Gift of Self

If we think back to the short but intense life of Maximilian, we can easily imagine him always engaged in dialogue with others, with university students in Krakow, with the other patients in Zakopane, with state officials, with fellow prisoners, even with his tormentors in Auschwitz. Maximilian was aware that the first manner of evangelizing is the personal contact with the other. “A poor way which does not need many tools, but yet is very effective,” as the Italian bishops stated in their letter L’amore di Cristo ci sospinge, in April 1999. “A poor, but not easy, way, because it demands to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have (cf. 1 Pt 3:15) through a daily and wide testimony, through relationships faithful to the Gospel, full of meaning on a personal, family and community level.” And St. Maximilian, as a brother and a friend, like the Good Samaritan in the parable, as a mother, as the blessed Mother, knew how to be close, to listen to, to be compassionate, to console, to enlighten and to talk with candor and respect.

A time comes, perhaps for all of us, when we realize that words are no longer enough to express and witness to Love. Jesus used these words to prepare His disciples to understand where the mission that was entrusted to them was to lead them: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life.... Love one another ... so that the world may believe” (cf. Jn 15-17). Fr. Maximilian learned from Jesus, Mary, St. Paul, St. Francis, that we are missionaries when we are ready, day by day, to give our lives, to spend and consume them for love, with love, like a mother. Maximilian had been training for this throughout his lifetime. He understood the logic of Jesus: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12:24), and he followed it immediately, letting himself be led day-to-day by Mary, by the Holy Spirit, making it his rule of life. And so he was a missionary and finally a martyr, which means a witness of Christ’s charity.

In the Spiritual Exercises’ notes of 1937, we find a very short sentence: “Da teipsum aliis = amor (Give yourself to others = love).” A short sentence that contains the whole mystery of a lifetime.

Questions for discussion:

• Will we accept the legacy that St. Maximilian entrusts to us: to be missionaries like Mary, attentive to the signs of the times, the needs of the world, in the most diverse realities and to become a reflection of the goodness and mercy of God’s tenderness?

Commitment in our life:

To be consecrated to Mary without limit or to renew our consecration to her with refreshed zeal. To become part of the MI and to participate in its mission in the Church and the world.

Closing Prayer

Hail Mary… 

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you, and for all those who do not have recourse to you, especially the enemies of Holy Church and all those recommended to you.

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