Today is the Feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who was born in Poland in the year 1894. He had a great devotion to the Mother of God. At the age of 10 he had a vision of Our Blessed Mother holding two crowns in her hand: one was white and the other was red. The white crown represented purity and the red crown represented martyrdom. Maximilian chose both crowns. When he was fourteen he and his brother joined the Franciscans and he was ordained as a priest, thus putting on the white crown of purity. During the Nazi oppression Maximilian ran several publications to speak against Nazism. His father was arrested and hung by the Nazis in 1914. Maximilian used the latest technologies available to them in those days like the radio and motion pictures to spread the Gospel message and devotion to the Mother of God and to condone the Nazis. In the year 1941 he was arrested and sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. When a prisoner from the camp escaped the Nazi soldiers chose ten men to be executed by starvation in a bunker. Franciszek Gajowniczek was among the ten men chosen and he cried out saying he had a wife and children. When Maximilian heard this he stepped forward to take the place of Franciszek. In the starvation bunker he led the men in prayer and singing of hymns, he did not despair. After three weeks he and a few other prisoners who were still alive and were executed by lethal injection. Eye-witnesses say that he was very patient and never complained or asked for anything, even in the starvation bunker he had a pleasant smile on his face. In his death he received the red crown of martyrdom. John Paul II canonized him in the year 1982 and Franciszek was in attendance. Saint Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of journalists and publishers. May we seek his intercession today on his feast day! 

Today is the Feast of Saint Jane Frances De Chantal who lived in France. Jane is a very popular name in the west however not many people know about her life. Her father was president of parliament and she married a baron at the age of 21. They had four children. Jane was known for her devotion to the Eucharist. On her request her husband had daily mass in their household. She practiced the works of mercy so perfectly in her care of the sick and the poor that she was called a Perfect Woman. Jane was widowed after seven years of marriage when her husband died in a hunting accident. She was deeply distressed but after some time she forgave her husband's friend who caused the accident. Her father-in-law ordered her to live with him in servitude as a condition to give the inheritance to  her children. So she went to live with her father-in-law who eventually had a conversion. During a Lenten visit to her father's house she heard Francis De Sales preach. Frances became her friend and spiritual director. Under the guidance of Frances De Sales, Jane founded the cloistered Order of the Sisters of the Visitation of Holy Mary. Before her death she had founded nearly eighty convents. Saint Jane is the patron saint of widows, forgotten people and children separated from parents. 

​Today is the Feast of Saint Clare who was a friend of Saint Francis. She was so inspired by the preaching of Francis she decided to join him or rather founded a new order for women and received her habit one night in the little chapel of Portiuncula. The most popular story about Saint Clare occurred during the crusades when the Saracen soldiers attacked and destroyed many convents and monasteries. As they were approaching the convent of Saint Clare and her sisters, the sisters urged Saint Clare to abandon the convent and flee. However Saint Clare refused and instead she took the monstrance with the Holy Eucharist and raised it in front of the Saracens. When the soldiers saw the Blessed Sacrament they fled in fear. No one knows what they saw and why they fled but through her complete trust in her Lord the sisters were spared from destruction. We can say that the success of Saint Francis as a peacemaker to the sultan of the Muslims during the crusades was supported by the prayers of Saint Clare. Today we see our Pope Francis also reaching out with his message of peace to all people.
​My children and I had a blessing of visiting the convent of Saint Clare in Assisi and we participated in the evening prayers which was prayed by the sister in the room where the relic of her body is venerated in Assisi. Today I pray for the various orders of sisters of Saint Clare and all the Franciscans.

​Today is the Feast of Saint Lawrence who was a deacon appointed by Pope Sixtus II and was entrusted with the church treasury so he could care for the poor in Rome. Both Pope Sixtus and Saint Lawrence were arrested by the Roman guards for their Christian faith. Pope Sixtus was executed but the guards delayed Lawrence's execution because they wanted him to hand over all the wealth from the church treasury. Saint Lawrence had distributed all the wealth to the poor in Rome so he brought the poor people to the Roman guards and told them they were the treasures of the church. This infuriated the guards and they tied him to a gridiron and burned him slowly. Saint Lawrence did not denounce his Christian faith even though he was tortured instead his last words were, "This side is done, turn me over". There is a gridiron in Rome that's venerated even today in the church of San Lorenzo which tradition says was the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence was martyred. Saint Lawrence is the patron saint of deacons, chefs and fire fighters. Also around his feast day the earth passes through a comet's tail which results in meteorite showers or falling stars which people call as the tears of Saint Lawrence. As I'm writing this on August 8th two days before I plan to post this article I observed a falling star this morning around 5:30 AM and I can't remember in recent time seeing a falling star so clearly. Saint Lawrence pray for us!

​Today is the Feast of Saint Teresa Benedicta of the cross. She was born into a Jewish family and her parents named her Edith Stein. She was a practicing Jew until the age of fourteen when she stopped believing in God and became an atheist. Her mother was widowed when she was very young and her family faced many hardships. She pursued a successful philosophy career in Germany but she was always seeking the truth. There were two kairos moments in her conversion to Christianity. The first is when she saw a woman enter an empty church to kneel and pray and leave with a peaceful smile. The second is when she picked up a copy of Saint Teresa of Avila's "The Way of Perfection" while visiting her Christian friend one summer. She read the book all night long and when complete she exclaimed that she had finally found the Truth. A year later she was baptized and began her discernment process to join the Carmelite Order. After a decade of waiting she joined the Carmelites in Cologne and received the name Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. During the Nazi persecution she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz and died in the gas chambers there. Here literary works are very profound especially the book I'm reading at present "The science of the cross" is a gem to be treasured by all Carmelites and everyone. On May 1, 1987 she was beatified by Saint Pope John Paul II.

​Today is the Feast of Saint Dominic a Spanish friar most known for giving the church the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Dominic and his companion friars were trying to preach against the Albigensian heretics who believed that the body and all material things were evil and only the things of the spirit were good. However their attempts at preaching against this heresy failed and many Catholics in Europe became Albigenisians. One night Our Lady appeared in a vision to Dominic and asked him to preach on the Psalter beads the meditation on the life events of Christ. The Psalter consisted of 150 beads on which the friars prayed 15 sets of 10 Hail Mary's one for each Psalm in the Bible. This meditative prayer became the Rosary we pray today. Our Lady gave him the specific meditations for each of the 15 decades of the rosary. It consisted of 5 sets of meditations on the joyful events of the life of Jesus and His childhood called the Joyful mysteries, the second set of meditations were on the sorrowful events of the life of Jesus called the Sorrowful mysteries and the third set of meditations were on the resurrection and life of Our Lady called the Glorious mysteries. In 2002 Saint Pope John Paul II introduced the fourth set of mysteries on the public ministry of Jesus called the luminous mysteries. While the rosary is by far the most popular devotion among Catholics very few people remember that Saint Dominic was the chosen son of Our Lady who gave the rosary to us. Saint Dominic and Saint Francis shared a unique friendship. On the day before they met in Rome, Saint Dominic had a vision of Saint Francis and so did Saint Francis so they recognized each other without an introduction. There was question of whether the Franciscan order should be a separate new order or if it should merge with the Dominican order. After the saints discussion they decided it would be better if they remained as two separate orders each focusing on their particular charism, Franciscan on poverty and Dominican on prayerful preaching. They had both come to Rome to meet the Pope regarding matters of their respective orders. It is still a tradition for the Franciscans to visit the Dominicans on the Feast Day of their Patron and Founder and the Dominicans do the same on the Feast Day of Saint Francis. Special feast day wishes to all those who are named after Saint Dominic and especially to my son Sunny who's baptismal name is Dominic. 

Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Snows. It is a special day for my family because my father, my brother, several cousins, nephews and my paternal grandfather are named "Nevis" after Our Lady of Snows. Our Lady appeared to a couple in Rome, Italy in 352AD and requested a church be built in her honor on the location where there will be snow in the middle of summer. Next morning the couple found snow covered only on top of Esquiline Hill and the snow showed the outline of the church to be built. This church is now a Basilica and is known as Santa Maria Maggiore or Saint Mary Major. The Pope visits this Basilica prior to his foreign travels.  Visitors to Santa Maria Maggiore on August 5th experience a shower of white rose petals from the dome in the morning during mass and evening during vespers which is a tradition to commemorate the first snow event in 352AD. When my children and I visited we were blessed to venerate the relic of the actual crib of the Nativity of Jesus from Bethlehem which comprises of five wooden boards. The original icon of Our Lady and Christ Child by Saint Luke the Evangelist painted on the wooden table of the Holy Family from Nazareth is also enshrined here. The night before we returned back to the United States we went back to visit this beautiful Basilica to bid farewell and say a prayer of thanksgiving to Our Blessed Mother for the wonderful time we had in Italy! Our Lady of Snows pray for us. 

Today is the Feast of Saint John Vianney who is the patron saint of parish priests. Priestly vocation is a unique gift that Jesus gave us during his last supper with his disciples and immediately before His passion, death and resurrection. Priests today need our support more than ever before. Their life is a contradiction in today's culture ruled by materialism. Today's society fails to understand the sacrificial lifestyle of celibate priests. They are not only misunderstood by non-believers but sometimes even their own people and peers have lost faith in the sacrament of holy orders and priestly celibacy. During these times we could show our appreciation for our priests by our life. The way we live can be a source of encouragement for the priests and religious of our time. It can give them some consolation to see lay people putting God's kingdom above everything else. It can give them courage when they see us pray and proclaim the Gospel truth and the teachings of the Catholic Church without watering it down. I believe our fearless adherence to our faith which is counter cultural will be a source of comfort to them.