Friends, today we celebrate the memorial of Maximilian Kolbe, the great saint of Auschwitz. A prisoner from Fr. Kolbe's barracks escaped, and in retaliation, the Nazi guards picked out ten other prisoners at random for execution. When one of those chosen broke down in tears, protesting that he was the father of a family, Kolbe stepped forward and said "I am a Catholic priest; take me and spare this man."
Priests are called "father," because they are life-givers in the spiritual order. Spiritual fathers protect their children; they teach them; they are there for them. At the limit, they even give their lives for them, and that's what we see in today's great saint.
Jesus gathered around himself a band of apostles whom he shaped according to his own mind and heart and whom he subsequently sent on mission. Priests, down through the centuries—from Augustine and Aquinas, to Francis Xavier and John Henry Newman, to John Paul II and your own pastor—are the descendants of those first friends and apprentices of the Lord. They have been needed in every age, and they are needed today, for the Kingdom of Heaven must be proclaimed, the poor must be served, God must be worshiped, and the sacraments must be administered.
Courtesy: Bishop Robert Barron
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