Thursday, August 14, 2014

The Patron Saint of Addicts and Prisoners

August 14 is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.


Saint Maximilian, Patron Saint of addicts and prisoners, we confidently implore you -
lead us out of unhappy vices, and deliver us from evil places.

Through thy victorious love -

- of the Father, God of our hearts,
help us who have become too hard of heart.

- of the Son, God in our hearts,
hear us who have become too afraid to pray.

- of the Spirit, God through our hearts,
heal us who have become too weary of life.

- of the Father, Son, and Spirit,
make haste to help us.

- of the Blessed Virgin Mary, pray for us.

- of our suffering humanity, pray for us.

- of God and Country, pray for us.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, help of addicts and release of prisoners,
I love you and I trust in you.

Amen.
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Auschwitz was not a Polish concentration camp. It was a Nazi concentration camp on Polish soil; a wound in the spirit of our common humanity.

Saint Maximilian preceded my Anne in Auschwitz - but in my heart, in the hidden places in every human soul where time as we know it does not apply - they led me to each other.

And believed in me long before I believed in myself.