Special Sauce

Living and dying for the uniqueness of each person

08/14/2017

John 15:12-16 Jesus said to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. I was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you."

           I’ll never forget one homily I heard in the eighth grade at a school Mass, preached by Fr. Tom Keller. I’m sorry to say I don’t remember too many grade school Mass homilies; I was usually counting the number of lights in the ceiling. Fr. Keller told the riveting story of St. Maximilian Kolbe, which I want to tell you, and I hope you will always remember it, too.

             Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan Friar born on January 8, 1894. At the age of 12, he had a vision of Mary that would permanently stamp his life. He recounted: “That night, I asked the Mother of God what would 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 two 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.” Kolbe received the first crown when he joined the Franciscan Friars in 1907, at the age of 13.

            Kolbe donned the second crown in 1941, when he was taken prisoner to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. The Nazis wanted to set an example of ten prisoners by starving them to death. One of the ten was a young husband and father, and when he was selected, he cried out, “My wife! My children!” Kolbe volunteered to take his place. Kolbe lived longer than the other nine and so was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid and died on August 14, 1941. On October 10, 1982, Pope St. John Paul II canonized St. Maximilian Kolbe, and in the audience that day at St. Peter’s Basilica was present that husband and father whose life was spared, along with his family.

            What impressed me so much about St. Maximilian Kolbe is that he saw in that Jewish prisoner what the Nazis were blind to: each person is created in the image of God. In other words, not only is it worth fighting for the right of other people to live, but it’s even worth dying for. That’s why St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of the pro-life movement. Every human person – even one that’s virtually invisible in the womb – is irreplaceable, unrepeatable, and, you might say, irresistible in the eyes of God because he loved us so much he sent his Son to die for us, and that’s exactly what St. Maximilian Kolbe did.

              One day a head-hunter approached my brother, Paul, and talked to him about taking a job at another company. He asked Paul a curious question, “So, what is your special sauce?” My brother didn’t know what he meant, so he replied, “Well, I really like Sriracha!” The head-hunter went on to explain: “Your special sauce is what you bring to this organization that no one else can.” That really helped my brother to think in a whole new way about his value as an employee to a company. He needed to identify his “special sauce.” That was the fundamental and fatal failure of the Nazis during World War II: they couldn’t see the special sauce of the Jewish people, and that was exactly what St. Maximilian Kolbe did see in that Jewish father and husband. Everyone has a special sauce.

              Today take a moment to think about the people in your life – family and friends, coworkers and classmates, fellow parishioners and fellow Americans. Can you see each person’s special sauce? In some people it will be easy to see (like in your children and grandchildren), while in others it will be harder. But the reason it’s hard to see another’s special sauce is because of our own selfishness, our professional jealousy, our wounded pride and ego, which blind us like it blinded the Nazis, who failed to see how special each Jewish person is. Rather, ask for the prayers of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who accepted the crown of purity and martyrdom, who believed people are so special, they’re not only worth living for, but also worth dying for.

Praised be Jesus Christ!