The Deadliest Poison, Part 1
One of my heroes was born on January 8th, 1894 in the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. He received a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary when he was only 12 years old, during which she predicted that he would persevere in purity and become a martyr for our Faith. By age 21, he received his first doctorate degree in Philosophy. At age 28, he received his second doctorate in Theology.
He became a priest and witnessed angry demonstrations against the popes of his time, including Pope St. Pius X. He was a writer and a missionary, founding multiple monasteries in Japan and India. His health forced him to return home to Poland in 1936. Three short years later, the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Life for this man would never be the same.
Despite his own health challenges, he was one of the few who remained in his monastery and even went so far as to open a temporary hospital there to help those in need. He spent three months in prison after his town was invaded, but was then released. He was given an opportunity to avoid future persecution, but refused to sign a document that would protect him as a German citizen because of his German ancestry. He went on to hide over 2,000 Jews in his monastery and began printing many anti-Nazi German publications from their printing house. On February 17, 1941, he was arrested and the monastery shut down. He was taken to the Pawiak prison for three months before being transferred to Auschwitz.
During all this, he never abandoned his priesthood. He remained committed to his identity and the Church. Mother Mary’s prediction would eventually come true when he volunteered his life to take the place of a man with a family who was being sent to be starved to death. After two weeks of starvation and dehydration, he still hadn’t died. The Nazis injected him with a lethal poison, to which he willingly gave his arm.
This man was St. Maximillian Kolbe. In my opinion, he is one of the greatest saints of the last 2000 years of Church history. He was the epitome of a warrior for Christ. He was a man he knew who he was and what he was here to do.
St. Maximillian Kolbe endured tremendous suffering and saw evil in its rawest and truest forms. He lived in both Russian and Nazi occupied Poland. He was a missionary to foreign lands where he undoubtedly saw the reality of extreme poverty. He was alive for both WWI and WWII, witnessing one of the harshest concentration camps from the inside. We have many great quotes from this man, but one that has always stood out to me the most was when he shared his thoughts the greatest evil of our time:
“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference” –St. Maximillian Kolbe
Imagine that. Imagine going through life having seen and experienced all that he did, seeing the absolute worst of mankind – then someone asks you, “what do you think is the greatest problem in the world today?”
Hate? No.
Violence? No.
War? Nope.
Poverty? Negative.
It’s indifference.
It’s apathy. It’s the fact that all of those things are happening all over the world and too many people simply do not care. People with the ability, resources, and oftentimes the awareness, do nothing to provide a solution. It brings me back to the timeless Edmund Burke quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to sit aside and do nothing.”
Are you one of the good people doing nothing?
Short term memory loss
It’s amazing to me how quickly we as humans can forget things. Have you ever had a day or a season in your life be so bad that you assumed everything after it would be relatively easy? I’m sure we all have. I know I have multiple times. This week, I reflected more and more on my time in the Dominican Republic on three different mission trips. Those trips were filled with love, service, and the Holy Spirit. The experiences I had there permanently changed my view on material goods and the bountiful blessings that are afforded to me as a middle-class American.
The most interesting part of my third trip was getting to see others go through these same experiences I had had multiple times now. This group was the biggest we had gone with yet, and definitely had the highest average age across the board. We usually traveled with other college kids, but this time had more middle aged people than usual. Some of them had allowed decades to pass between their last gritty form of service, and it showed.
It was amazing to see the unwillingness to submit themselves to certain discomforts for a ten-day period of time. Even once returning to the United States, it stunned me to see the quickness with which appreciation for the finer things in life (like warm showers, air conditioning, and fully functioning toilets) evaporated in that American air.
To be fair to my fellow missionaries, this experience of taking things for granted isn’t unique to middle aged, first time mission trip goers. We all do it almost every single day. Firmly aware of the injustices taking place around the world and even in our own country, we can barely afford the time to even pray for the victims, let alone contribute our time and treasure to the point of sacrifice.
One of the most devastating consequences of this return to comfort and ease is that we lose sight of all the experiences that once moved us to change the way that we live. When we go through a life altering experience, like losing a loved one or going on a spiritual retreat, we discover this deep understanding of reality. It pushes us to approach life in a new way. It drives us to cherish our time with loved ones, be more generous with our possessions, and to share the wisdom and insights from what we’ve learned with those we encounter. Almost each time though, as the hours and days pass, we get more comfortable as normalcy resettles around us. We forget these hard earned nuggets of wisdom and our lives look eerily similar to the way they did prior to the experience.
Many resolutions and commitments made on the tail end of trying times go unfinished because we sprint away from the pain, which is coupled with the wisdom, at the first opportunity. It takes great humility and courage to not take people and things for granted in your life. Why? Because it forces you to realize that you are not any different from those suffering from extreme poverty in other places in the world who were never given a chance at prosperity. It leaves you no choice but to actually live the lessons you learned, and we all know that application and doing are the hardest parts of changing. Personal comfort leads to indifference to the struggles going on in the lives of other people.
We can’t all solve every problem in the world, especially not on our own. But I’m willing to bet that we could all do a little bit more to help make the world a better place. I think one of the best places to start is evaluating the root causes of this indifference and apathy that we are plagued with, and examining how it might be in effect in our own lives. What’s keeping you from playing a bigger role in the battle between good and evil in our world today?
Resources:
Chris Stefanick dropping some straight fire on St. Max’s life
Dave Ramsey on Victim Mentality - You have to watch this. Both hilarious and relevant
Simon Sinek on laziness and distractions
Fight Mediocrity summary of Man’s Search for Meaning
These are laid out in order that I discuss them in the reflection. In order of their greatness I’d recommend:
Fr Mike
Simon Sinek
Chris Stefanick
Dave Ramsey
Allie Stuckey
Fight Mediocrity
I’m not sure if any of you actually watch these anyway, but these six are pretty relevant and awesome. The Sinek one is an edit of a longer interview he did on the YouTube show “Impact Theory”. He has two awesome interviews on there which I highly recommend. I love Impact Theory and Fight Mediocrity as YouTube channels. I often try to tell people that there’s no secret sauce behind some of the insights that I have, but almost all of them come from watching YouTube videos like these for hours. And reading the books. Just read and listen to smart people.
Be your best!
This reflection is a part of Seeking Excellence's EXODUS 90 series, which took place in the months leading up to Easter.
Nathan Crankfield is a convert to the Catholic faith. He is a proud graduate of Bishop McDevitt High School, Mount St. Mary's University, and US Army Ranger School. After serving four years of active duty in the US Army, he joined the staff at Dynamic Catholic as a parish consultant. Find more of his writing by visiting our blog section here