I have not blogged a whole lot this summer. I have August off from graduate school, so I am only writing pieces for Catholic Exchange, Epic Pew, and Catholic Link until September. I will return to blogging then. For now I am having fun with my daughter and catching up on deep cleaning projects around the house. Here is my article for Catholic Exchange today.
St. Maximilian Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894 in Zdunska Wola, Poland. His entire life was centered on his great love and devotion to Our Lady through her Immaculate Conception. At the age of six he had a vision of her:
That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.
—Regis Armstrong and Ingrid Peterson, The Franciscan Tradition, 50
Kolbe and his older brother entered the Conventual Franciscans in 1910 and he made his final vows to the evangelical counsels of poverty, obedience, and chastity in 1914. He was then sent to Rome to study at the Pontifical Gregorian University where he pursued a doctorate in Philosophy. He then continued on to receive a doctorate in Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure in 1922.
Swimming the Depths 