We Are Called

We are all called to do what must be done with our lives. God has a plan, even if He doe not readily reveal it to us. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; it is through Him we are Saved. The other day was the Feast of Saint Maxmilian Kolbe, my patron saint, and he knew this truth well.

"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"
~ St. Maximilian Kolbe

This may sound like melodramatic commentary, but he was in the extermination camps. He would give up his life for another man there, one who had a family. He was willing to lay down his life for that of his fellow man, and accepted the red crown of martyrdom alongside the white crown of purity he already possessed.

He kept his faith, even in death. Communion for fellow prisoners in the concentration camps, preaching and singing as he was starved to death, and even offering his arm up to the Nazis when they found he was the only one left alive, so that they might lethally inject him.

We are all called to love God and to live our lives in service to Him, no matter our vocation. I believe I am called to marriage, I know many called to priesthood. Yet in all things, we must strive to fight the evil that lies in the depths of our souls and the indifference it causes. As Saint Kolbe said, "The most deadly poison of our time is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers."