Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

God never gives up. It’s just not his nature. We’ve heard God described by the three “omnis”: omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. If we could create a fourth and fifth “omni”, it may be omni-loving and omni-faithful.

In Ezekiel 16:1-15, 60, 63, we are reminded of a Jerusalem that is raised up to the height of God’s graces. However, Israel regularly squandered that relationship in favor of trivial pursuits, but God would build them right back up. What they failed to recognize, but God did not, is that they were not in a give-and-take relationship, but rather, a permanent spiritual covenant. What Israel (and we) mismanaged, God maintained in the deepest recesses of his Divine Nature. The kind of faith and commitment he freely graced is one he is willing to defend, often unilaterally. That is Love!

The lesson is similar in Matthew 19:3-12. Marriage is not dissolvable. By extension of that love that God graces to us through his covenant and which has no “return to sender”, the love in marriage has no provisos either. It reminds us, in a daily, visible way, of God’s deep, committed, faithful, and unwavering love for us.

Yet we can be foolish and easily distracted. Too often, we treat faith, commitment, and love as distant ideals, tending to them only when time allows. We give up or yield to the demands of the world. Thankfully, God never sees us as distant or worthy of only part of his attention.

Today is the Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, who gave his life in place of another prisoner at Auschwitz. Why? He knew that God’s love is limitless and unconditional. With his eyes fixed on God rather than on the cruelty of the world, he saw sacrifice not as defeat, but as faith in action.

God never gives up and by his grace, his Saints never do either.

Prayer:

Father, help me to give up on giving up!