The fourth reflection about the painting of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Burmarrad

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

1 Corinthians 3:11-13

St Maximillian Mary Kolbe – who was not yet a canonised saint by the time this painting was completed in 1961 – is shown down on his knees before St Francis, his Seraphic father, and at the feet of Mary Immaculate, his mother. St Maximillian, the Knight of the Immaculata, travelled to the Far East, all the way to Japan from Poland, spreading the devotion towards Mary. St Maximillian unstintingly encouraged each and every soul to make a total consecration of themselves to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, and to renew it annually, as a means of allowing ourselves to be shaped by the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God and thus become authentic Christians and followers of the Nazarene like Mary was. She was doubly his mother: in the natural order as well as being the one who always sought to do God’s will (see Lk 8: 21). Declares the Dogmatic Constitution of the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium:

While in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues.

Lumen Gentium, par. 65

And what better way is there than martyrdom to achieve this? The founder and leader of the Militia Immaculata, an army under the mantle of Mary to combat the evils of the world through prayer and evangelisation, was now anonymous prisoner 16670 at Auschwitz. Martyrdom may be a distant thought to us, but relegating people to mere numbers, percentages, statistics, as just a cog in the economic apparatus, is a factual deception. This applies not only to persons in authority, but to all of us as well, who make up society; a society that subconsciously influences the way we think in such a way that despite watching all that is going on in the world on television, the internet and social media, we remain indifferent to the suffering of those dying of hunger or who are being exploited, out of our sight.

Being a keyboard critic and not even lifting a finger is easy. Confined to our comfort zones, we are precluded from coming face to face with humans like us, made of flesh and blood, to understand their anxieties, spend time with them and minister to them, like the Polish saint who no torture could stop him from doing his duty as a priest, even in that hell on earth. To him, that concentration camp was another field to be cultivated, a place for the Word to be planted and for salvation to sprout. Despite having to keep battling against the forces of darkness and the culture of death, he was executed on 14 August 1941 and his body burnt, as though a sacrifice pleasing to God, the following day, on the feast of the Assumption.

Writing metaphorically about the Day of Judgement, St Paul reminds the Corinthians that fire will reveal what sort of work each one has done (1 Corinthians 3: 13). Regarding St Maximillian, that fire revealed his heart of gold and his zeal for the Kingdom of God. If today were to be my judgement day, what would the fiery furnace of God’s mercy and justice reveal? What will remain after all the hay and stubble have burned away?