Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest, Martyr
Friday of week 19 in Ordinary Time
Gospel: Matthew 19:3-12In today’s Gospel, Jesus brings the discussion about marriage beyond legal permissions and back to God’s original intention: a communion of faithful and enduring love. He explains that certain concessions were made “because you were so unteachable”, because of the hardness of the human heart, but immediately points beyond that hardness to what God desired “from the beginning.” This is the hope of the Gospel: our weakness, selfishness, failures, and wounded relationships do not define the limits of what God can accomplish in us. The Kingdom of Heaven is always greater than the hardness of our hearts. Grace can soften what has become rigid, heal what has been wounded, restore the capacity for fidelity, and teach us again how to give ourselves in love. Jesus also speaks of those who renounce marriage “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” showing that every Christian vocation, marriage, priesthood, religious life, or consecrated celibacy, finds its deepest meaning in self-giving love. Maximilian Kolbe demonstrated this dramatically by freely offering his own life in place of another prisoner. His witness shows what a heart transformed by the Kingdom can become: no longer imprisoned by self-preservation, but completely free to love. The Gospel therefore invites us not to measure God’s call by the hardness of our hearts, but to allow His grace to enlarge them until we become capable of loving with the fidelity, freedom, and generosity of Christ. Let’s reflect: Do I allow the grace of God’s Kingdom to soften the hardness of my heart and make me capable of a more faithful, generous, and self-giving love?
Don Giorgio