Happy Halloween All Hallows’ Eve! In this month’s newsletter we’ll be taking a look back at some of the exciting things that have happened around Saint Paul’s this October before highlighting the next saint in our Saint Spotlight: Saint Maximilian Kolbe!
Bar Jonah Opens!
Just last week, our new coffee bar opened for full use in the basement! Named Bar Jonah in a reference to the apostle Peter (who was called Simon bar-Jonah), the coffee shop is open from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. every weekday to give students another place to study, socialize, or invite friends to who perhaps otherwise wouldn’t come to Saint Paul’s. Below are some pictures of the new cafe!
SPK Success
Earlier this month, 70 students went on one of our most popular events, Saint Paul’s Koinonia retreat, or SPK! SPK takes place once a semester and gives students the opportunity to step out of their comfort zone and meet new people, all while growing in a faith-filled environment.
SEEK Signups Ramp Up
The SEEK Conference is a five-day conference put on by FOCUS (the Fellowship of Catholic University Students) that is focused on helping college students deepen their relationship with Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. It’s one of the largest Catholic gatherings in the country and attracted over 20,000 participants to its last conference.
Saint Paul’s and UW-Madison are currently in third place out of every college nationwide in sign-ups for SEEK, with 205 students who have already signed up to go! SEEK 25 will take place from January 1st to January 5th in Salt Lake City, UT. To learn more about the conference, click here.
Family Weekend at UW
Last weekend was UW-Madison’s Family Weekend, and Saint Paul’s held some events to welcome families into the student center to see what their children are able to experience! About 50 people came for a family brunch after Mass on Saturday.
Save the Date – Organ Concert
Our third annual Organ Concert will be coming up on Saturday, February 1st, 2025! We’d love to see as many people there as possible for a beautiful concert and reception afterward. Be on the lookout for RSVPs later this year.
Saint Spotlight – Maximilian Kolbe
Each newsletter this year we’ll be highlighting a different saint who is displayed on a mosaic in our chapel and looking at the life they lived. Today we’ll be taking a look at St. Maximilian Kolbe.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe
St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who was known for his profound Marian devotion and eventual martyrdom at Auschwitz concentration camp. Born Raymund Kolbe in 1894 in the Kingdom of Poland (which was then part of the Russian Empire), Kolbe grew up in a poor family and had to endure his father being captured and hanged by Russia for fighting against them for an independent Poland.
From a young age, Raymund had a strong religious devotion. At nine years old, he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed the direction of his life. In the vision, after he asked Mary what God wanted of him, she offered him the white crown of chastity or the red crown of martyrdom, asking him if he was willing to accept either of these crowns. Young Raymund told her he accepted both.
Only a few years after this, at 13 years of age, he and his brother entered seminary with the Conventual Franciscans where he chose the name Maximilian. Soon he went to Rome to finish his studies, and while there, he witnessed many demonstrations against the pope and the Vatican, and this inspired him to found what he called the Militia Immaculatae to encourage people to consecrate themselves entirely to Jesus through Mary and to pray for the conversion of sinners.
Ordained a priest in 1918, Maximilian was innovative and sought to use technology to spread the Faith. In 1922 he founded a religious publication and published pamphlets, a daily newspaper that grew to have a circulation of 230,000, and even a monthly magazine, Knight of the Immaculata, that grew to have a monthly circulation of over one million. The success of this publication led him to found Niepokalanów (or “City of the Immaculata”) – a Catholic religious community in Poland that housed their publications, radio stations, and the 650 Franciscan friars who ran their operations.
In 1941 the monastery was shut down and Kolbe and the few remaining friars were arrested by the Gestapo, eventually being transferred to Auschwitz concentration camp. At their arrest, Kolbe encouraged his fellow friars to pray fervently amid the travail to win as many souls as possible.
In prison, Kolbe was subject to harassment and beatings as he continued his duties as a priest, accepting these difficulties with peace and even sharing what scant food he received with others. Eventually, when a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz, the deputy of the camp selected ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter future escape attempts. When one of the ten selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek, shouted out that he was a husband and father, Kolbe volunteered to die in his place.
In the prison cell, Kolbe led the others in prayer and hymns to Mary, never complaining or asking for anything. When, after two weeks without food or water he still lived, the guards administered a lethal injection on August 14, 1941, which he received calmly. On August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, his remains were cremated.
Maximilian Kolbe was beatified in 1971 and, on October 10, 1982, Pope John Paul II canonized him a saint and declared him both a confessor and a martyr of charity. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man saved by Kolbe at Auschwitz, was present at both his beatification and canonization.
At Kolbe’s canonization, Pope John Paul II declared that Kolbe “did not die, but gave his life for his brother.”
Today, St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of radio operators, drug addicts, political prisoners, families, and journalists.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!
Thank you for making our mission at UW-Madison possible and able to flourish year after year!
God bless you!
