[00:00] St. Maximilian, a great example for us in our community, those associated with the Franciscans of the Immaculate and other orders who honor St.

[00:38] Maximilian and his great contribution to the Church and understanding how we live out our consecration to Our Lady. I don't think there's a better example of somebody who embodied, who personified consecration to Our Lady, lived it out to the fullest, you know, reasonably speaking, to the fullest he could, and had the stamp of God's approval

[01:12] by the heroic death that he underwent and how it was sort of arranged by, looks like it was arranged by God, how a prisoner escaped from the concentration camp and then men are assembled to have ten men chosen as punishment to be starved to death and a man crying out that he had a family, didn't want to die, he had a wife and kids, and he is inspired to take his place and

[01:49] offers himself willingly, calmly, gladly, and then perseveres, perseveres, I mean he goes into the concentration camp and he's singing and singing and preparing for that ultimate beautiful moment of death where he will meet Jesus and Our Lady at the gates, starving to death, exhausting his life, kind of like an image of Jesus who shed His

[02:23] last drop of blood on the cross, you could say, I don't know, we do have the blood and water coming out after the death of Jesus, but like while really there we see the really shedding all of His blood for us, and St. Maximilian, as the guard said as they were going in, scornfully, "You're gonna go in there and you're going to dry up like tulips," and they did, they dried up for God,

[02:56] for Our Lord, St. Maximilian, and how he taught the others, he taught the others to love Our Lady in the prison, in the prison bunker, and prepared them for death, for a holy death, and prepared them for death, for a holy death, just really confirming our consecration, the importance of our consecration to Our Lady, the benefit of consecration to Our Lady, the benefit of living our lives with Our Lady, for God,

[03:31] for Jesus. We really want to imitate St. Maximilian in this way. His life really was that model, that model of loving Our Lady and sharing it to everyone, even through many obstacles. He was a pioneer in this, his deepening of understanding of

[04:08] consecration, how Our Lady comes into our soul, and how we become merry, we strive to be merry, and we have the most intimate union with Her. I don't think anybody has gone to that depth of explaining and helping us to live our union with Mary so that we can be like Christ, be like Jesus.

[04:39] So we had a heroic life. St. Maximilian died as he lived, he died as he lived, and that's what we want. As we live, we will die, and we will hopefully die as we live a holy life, becoming holy through our union with Mary, our love for Our Lady, our consecration, our entrustment of everything to Her, asking Her to continually mold us every day,

[05:15] every day, mold us in Her likeness, in the likeness of Jesus. He lived a Eucharistic life very much too, very, very devoted to the Eucharist, and had friars doing perpetual adoration around the clock. He had so many friars that he could do that, two at a time, perhaps, or more per hour. So we have a Eucharistic and Marian life of St. Maximilian,

[05:45] heroic, zealous, full of zeal, full of zeal to spread the faith. He'd be on the trains philosophizing with people, trying to lead them to the faith. Everywhere he went, he was, everywhere he went, he was, and he was exhausting himself too, you know, as he was working, trying to print the Night of the Immaculate, spread knowledge of the Catholic faith and Our Lady in magazines and newspapers, and he'd be there turning the printing machines,

[06:21] even though he had only one lung, really setting that example to his brothers, and really just living for Jesus, living for Our Lady, expending himself for them as he wanted, and as he was led and called to. So we thank St. Maximilian for all he did for his brothers and sisters, ultimately offering his life for that other Polish man, and

[06:52] asking for his spirit. As St. Elisha asked the spirit from St. Elijah, we want the spirit of St. Maximilian to come upon us to help us to live out our consecration faithfully and to persevere until our death as he did.