The Church calender is particularly crowded with feast days and memorials celebrating some widely known saints as well as special events in salvation history: Saint Alphonsus Liguori on August 1st, Saint John Vianney August 4th, The Transfiguration of the Lord August 6th, Saint Dominic August 8th, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) August 9th, Saint Lawrence August 10th, Saint Clare August 11th, Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe August 14th, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary August 15th, Saint Bernard August 20th, The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary August 22nd, Saint Bartholomew the Apostle (or Nathanael) August 24th, Saint Monica August 27th and Saint Augustine August 28th. Phew!
There are interesting stories behind all of the saints and events celebrated this month and I will touch on a couple of them below.
Renata and I celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary on August 28th.
On a sadder note, in Poland August is the month when the Warsaw Uprising of World War II began in 1944. More on that below.
August 15th is a national holiday in Poland. On this day the Church celebrates the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. From the earliest centuries Christians handed down this story: At the end of Mary's life on earth the Apostles, who were scattered across the known world preaching the Good News, were caught up and transported to Jerusalem (or Ephesus, the accounts vary) where Mary had lived with the Apostle John. The Apostles witnessed the appearance of Jesus and angels who bore Mary's soul to heaven. The Apostle Thomas however arrived on the scene three days later (Thomas, late again!). When the other Apostles opened Mary's tomb to show Thomas, Mary's body was not there but a fragrant aroma filled the tomb. The Apostles concluded that Mary's body had been assumed into heaven.
| The Assumption of Mary |
Well, first of all, the notion that all Christian belief is based soley on the Bible is not found in the Bible. St John writes that not everything Jesus did or taught could be contained in all the world's books (John 21:25). Scripture says that Enoch and Elijah were assumed into heaven (Genesis 5:24, 2 Kings 2:11), so it's certainly not far-fetched that the Mother of our Lord was assumed into heaven. Christians traditionally consider Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant. The old ark contained the Ten Commandments (the Law), some of the manna from heaven (the Bread of Heaven) and the Rod of Aaron (Power and Authority). In her womb Mary contained all of these in the Person of Jesus. Psalm 132 commemorates the return of the Ark of God to Jerusalem and lamments it's subsequent loss. The second half of this psalm says that the loss will be recompensed in the New Covenant. The following line could apply to the New Ark as well as the old: "Arise, Lord, come to your resting place, you and your majestic ark." (v. 8).
There are other Scriptural passages used to support Mary's Assumption, but I'll leave it at that.
As to its relevance, Mary is the model Christian, the first disciple, accepting entirely God's will as her own. Mary's eternal bliss in heaven is what God wills for each of us. Furthermore, Mary prays to our Lord Jesus for our salvation and for help from God in our times of need. Many of us are involved in prayer groups or prayer circles. How much greater can Mary's prayers in heaven be for us? As somebody once remarked, "Jesus was a Jew and every good Jewish son listens to his mother."
Edith Stein was a German born of observant Jewish parents in 1891. She was an atheist by her teenaged years. She received a doctorate in philosophy at age 25. Edith started to take in interest in the Catholic faith and after reading the autobiography of St Teresa of Avila she converted to Catholicism and was baptized into the Church on New Year's Day 1922. She became a university lecturer but was later forced to resign her position by the Nazi authorities in 1933 (she was still a Jew by their reckoning). She became a nun in the Discalced Carmelite Order and took the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Later her order moved her to the Netherlands to escape the Nazis. However, Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and in 1942 all Jewish converts to Christianity were ordered arrested. Edith and her sister Rosa, also a convert, were shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp where they were gassed to death, probably on August 9th 1942.
Raymund (Maximilian Mary) Kolbe was born in 1894 in Zdunska Wola, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. He became a Conventual Franciscan friar at age 17. During World War II Kolbe sheltered Jews from Nazi persecution in his friary at Niepokalanow and was eventually arrested by the Nazis in 1941. He was sent to Auschwitz on May 28th of that year. At the end of July 1941, 3 camp prisoners came up missing. The deputy camp commander ordered that 10 men be picked to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escapes. When one of the selected men cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to take his place. In the starvation cell, Kolbe celebrated mass everyday and sang hymns and encouraged his fellow prisoners. Each time the guards checked the cell, they found Kolbe either standing or kneeling and looking them calmly in the face. After 2 weeks only Kolbe remained alive. In order to clear the cell the guards injected Kolbe with carbolic acid to hasten his death. His remains were cremated the following day, August 15th, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe
On a lighter note, a few examples of the Church's sense of humor when choosing saints' patronages, taken from our August saints. Saint Lawrence was martyred in 258 during the persecution of the Roman Emperor Valerian. Lawrence was burned, or "grilled" to death. Tradition has it that he joked to his tormentors, "Turn me over, I'm done on this side." Saint Lawrence is the patron saint of cooks and chefs. Saint Clare of Assisi (sister of Saint Francis), who died in 1253, on one occasion was too ill to attend mass, but she was miraculously able to see and hear mass on the wall of her room. So, in 1958 Pope Pius XII designated her the patron saint of . . . television!
And finally, this. The Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944. The Soviet army was pushing the Germans back across eastern Poland. The Polish underground army, or Armia Krajowa (AK), coordinated a massive operation to free Warsaw, the capitol, of German occupation to coincide with the arrival of the Soviets. In this way the Poles could make the case for their own sovereignty to counter the puppet communist government the Soviets were preparing to put in place. However, the advancing Russian army stopped just across the Vistula River on Warsaw's eastern side. The Poles fought the Germans courageously for 2 months while the Russians sat and observed from the far side of the river. Polish boy and girl scouts acted as couriers between the Polish fighting units and into and out of the besieged city, often losing their lives. Polish civilians living in the city were killed by German artillery fire or by outright massacres at the hands of the infamous German SS troops.
On August 5th, in two districts under German control, SS troops went house to house shooting men, women and children and burning their bodies. Estimates of those murdered range in the tens of thousands. The purpose of this massacre was to crush the Poles' will to fight but instead had the effect of stiffening resistance.
The German military was not prepared to fight urban guerilla warfare. The outnumbered Poles with their well established network of barricades, street fortifications and tank obstacles effectively fought the Germans to a standstill. However, the shortage of food and medicine took its toll. The British were able to provide 200 low level air drops of supplies to the beleaguered Poles. Yet, without assistance from the Soviet Army, the uprising was eventually ground down with the Poles surrendering on October 2nd.
The Soviets remained on their side of the Vistula River while the Germans proceeded to raze Warsaw to the ground. Warsaw - hardly more than scorched rubble at that point -was finally "liberated" from the Germans by the Soviets in January 1945.
The old Warsaw center was entirely rebuilt after the war nearly exactly as it looked before.
Warsaw today
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