SAINTS OF THE DAY THURSDAY, 13 AUGUST, 2026 1) SAINTS PONTIAN AND HIPPOLYTUS 2) SAINT CASSIAN OF IMOLA 3) THE HOLY “SLEEP” OF THE MOTHER OF GOD 1) SAINTS PONTIAN AND HIPPOLYTUS POPE AND MARTYR (PONTIAN) AND PRIEST AND MARTYR (HIPPOLYTUS) (Late Second Century – c. 235) St. Pontian succeeded St. Urban in the Pontifical See in 230. He is chiefly known for convening a Roman Synod which confirmed a prior condemnation of the Egyptian theologian Origen. Like so many other bishops of his era, Pontian also dealt with divergent positions over how the Church should re-integrate Christians who had abjured their faith during a persecution. Should they be re-baptized, do public penance, or be welcomed back privately? Tensions over this issue perdured for many decades and deeply wounded Church unity. After the assassination of Alexander Severus in 235, Pontian was exiled by the Emperor Maximus to the mines of Sardinia. But he first graciously resigned in 235 so that a successor pope could be elected. For this magnanimous act, he was remembered as “distinguished” in contemporary documents. He bore his suffering and persecution patiently for Christ and attained the crown of martyrdom in that same year. Exiled together with St. Pontian was a priest named Hippolytus, one of the most important 3rd-century theologians of the Roman Church. Born about 170, he was already a priest and a personage of note when Origen heard him preach at Rome in 202. During the first part of his life he produced the Scriptural writings that constitute the best part of his works (he wrote the earliest commentary on Scripture, that of the Book Daniel), and defended the faith. He wrote on Scripture, dogma, law, apologetics, Christ, and also authored a comprehensive polemical work entitled A Refutation of All Heresies. About 215m he wrote the Apostolical Tradition (for which he is probably best known), which preserves some of the most ancient liturgical texts of the primitive church. The original of the Apostolic Tradition does not exist, and later translated fragments are of dubious provenance, making the work a fluid, composite text of different eras. Nevertheless, the core document is a one-of-a-kind artifact, allowing a modern Christian to peek through the keyhole into the liturgy of the early, praying Church. Hippolytus doesn't just describe the words and actions of the liturgy, as the earlier Didache and Saint Justin Martyr did. Instead, he writes down the actual prayers. The Apostolic Tradition contains the earliest known rite of ordination. The ordination rite of a bishop used today by the Catholic Church still largely adopts this ancient text. Hippolytus provides the first example of the Virgin Mary being invoked in liturgical prayer. And Hippolytus' prayers for the Eucharistic banquet include the third century words of consecration! This text is the source for a significant portion of today's Eucharistic Prayer II, perhaps the most commonly used Eucharistic prayer at Mass. When the faithful throughout the world hear the familiar cadence of Eucharistic Prayer II each Sunday, they are hearing the distant echo of priestly voices from the third century. As he did on so many significant Roman tombs, Pope Damasus (366-384) wrote an inscription on the tomb of Hippolytus more than a century after the saint died. Part of it reads: “Wherever he was able to go, he had spoken of the Catholic faith so that all might follow it. Thus our martyr deserves to be acknowledged.” Indeed. And at the entrance of the forever-closed catacombs of Saint Hippolytus, a personalized graffiti from an ancient pilgrim is carved into the wall, the tender petition invoking today'saint: “Hippolytus, keep Peter the sinner in mind.” Saint Hippolytus, keep all of us in mind. PATRON : Saint of Montaldo Scarampi, Italy (Pontian) and prison guards (Hippolytus). PRAYER: Saints Pontian and Hippolytus, you lived at a time of exiles, persecution and martyrdom, a most crucial period in the history of the Church. Yet, you proclaimed and gave public witness to your faith, leading to exile and death. Your leadership of the Church led to your tragic ends. You were isolated, suffering for lack of essentials and died as a result. May we realize the extent of the hardships you endured for Christ's sake, thus helping us gain courage when under duress, in Jesus' Name. Amen. 2) SAINT CASSIAN OF IMOLA MARTYR (4th Century) St. Cassian was a schoolmaster at Imola in northeast Italy. He died a martyr during the Roman persecutions under Diocletian, probably in the third century. Cassian had apparently been a schoolteacher for some time. Then a widespread persecution of Christians commenced. Roman officials arrested him because he was known, or at least suspected, to be a Christian. He was taken before the governor, and the governor demanded, as usual, that he offer sacrifice to the gods. Naturally, Cassian refused to perform this act of apostasy, so he was condemned to death. Now, the Romans had many set types of execution to choose from, but sometimes they invented others. Knowing that Cassian was a schoolmaster, the governor decided that it would be a clever novelty to have him stabbed to death by his own pupils! The schoolmaster was therefore stretched out on the ground and fixed down securely. Then Cassian's former students were brought in. They had not particularly liked their teacher because he had been strict with them. Given the signal, therefore, they set about with a fiendish joy to torment him. They broke their wooden writing tablets over his head, carved their initials carefully on his flesh, and finally stabbed him all over with their pens. Cassian meanwhile accepted their blows with much patience and no malice. He died bloodied with a thousand little wounds. PATRON: Imola, Mexico City, schoolteachers, shorthand-writers, parish clerks. St. Cassian of Imola: pray for us!
3) THE HOLY “SLEEP” OF THE MOTHER OF GOD Anticipating the feast of the Assumption of the Mother of God on the fifteenth of August, today, the thirteenth we celebrate her death or “dormition.” Dormition is a Latin word that means “sleep.” Several places in holy scripture death is referred to as “a sleep”. Jesus Himself spoke of the death of His friend Lazarus as a sleep. “Lazarus our friend sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11). When He went to the home of Jairus, a ruler of a synagogue, to cure his daughter, who had died before he arrived, Our Lord told the mourners to “Weep not; the maid is not dead, but sleepeth” (Luke 8:52). Saint Paul, likewise, in his First Letter to the Thessalonians wrote of those “who sleep in death” and have “fallen asleep” who await the resurrection of the dead (4:13ff). Interesting, too, is that our word “cemetery” is originally from the Greek word koimeterion, which means a “sleeping place.” So, the question arises: Was Our Lady “sleeping” the moment before she was resurrected and assumed body and soul into heaven? Or, had she actually died? Remember, Our Blessed Mother had no original sin, therefore, she was exempt from the penalty of death due to that sin. This, however, does not mean that her body was immortal by nature, but it would have been by privilege. A fortiori, Jesus had no sin, nevertheless, to redeem us and save us, He suffered and died. Such was the will of the Father. Mary, on the other hand, is not God, nor our Savior. She is, however, our co-redemptrix, and, as such, she chose to experience death herself, both to be one with us, as our Mother, and to imitate — or shall I say, participate in — the death and burial of her Son. “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed” (Luke 2:35). Mary, too, in union with her Son, would spend, just as did Jesus, forty hours in the tomb, from which place (in the Garden of Gethsemani near the tomb of Saint Joseph her spouse) her soul went forth for three days to comfort the souls in purgatory. Mary's Heart was one with Jesus' Heart. She willed to be like Him in all things, even in death, although her death was from an overabundance of love, not from any sickness or bodily affliction. Jesus surrendered to death because it was His will to do so in obedience to His Father. “No man taketh it away from me,” Jesus said to the Pharisees, “but I lay it down of myself, and I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18). There is nothing contrary to the Faith to hold the minority opinion that the Blessed Virgin did not die, but was merely asleep before her Assumption. And I will refrain from providing all the testimony from tradition and the fathers and doctors, affirming that the Mother of God did die. Suffice it to say that this far more common belief was held from the early centuries; Saints John Chrysostom and Ephrem in the East believed she died and most of the Latin doctors also did right up and including Saint Alphonsus. However, we must distinguish in the early western Church between the more common belief concerning Our Lady's true death and the less common belief concerning her Assumption. Saints Ambrose, Epiphanius, and Isidore of Seville, for example, offered their opinions as to the location of Our Lady's tomb, but they are surprisingly silent concerning her bodily Assumption. In defining the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, Pope Pius XII phrased the dogma succinctly: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus on Nov. 1, 1950). With these words he avoided any censoring of those fathers who piously assumed that the Savior would have exempted the spotless soul of His Mother from ever exiting her most pure body.Before I close, I would like to add a word about Saint Thomas the Apostle. There has always been a tradition in the universal Church that the Apostles and Saint Paul were summoned, by Saint John no doubt, to come home from their labors, and be present in Jerusalem for the “dormition” of their Mother. It has even been held that some of them were miraculously transported. Be that as it may, one of the Apostles was not miraculously transported, arriving late, after the Holy Virgin had been placed in her tomb. This tradition, which is found in a collection from pious apocryphal sources called Transitus Mariae (The Passage of Mary), attributed to Bishop St. Melito of Sardis (circa 180), enjoyed popularity by the fifth century. In fact, Saint John Damascene (d. 749) recorded this story: “St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria [Saint Pulcheria], who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of Saint Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom (sic) the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.” (Father William Saunders, Dormition of Mary, Catholic Education Resource Center) The year of Our Lady's Dormition was 58. She was seventy-two years old. At that time all of the Apostles were engaged in bringing the gospel to the nations. Saint James the Greater had been martyred sixteen years before by Herod Antipas. My opinion, concerning Saint Thomas, is this: He who, to his great sadness, did not accept the testimony of his fellow Apostles concerning the Resurrection of Christ, was chosen to be the first one to “see” the empty tomb of the Mother of God and, thereby, to be the first evangelist of her resurrection and Assumption. It was on account of Saint Thomas' request to see his Mother Mary's body that the Apostles went to the tomb and removed the stone cover. The fact that he did not arrive in Jerusalem until the third day after Mary's death also supports the tradition that “the Doubter” was far far away on the east coast of India preaching the Faith there in the year 58. His journey back to Jerusalem, with whatever notice he was sent of the Virgin Mother's approaching death, would be more difficult than the other Apostles because of the remoteness of his field of labor. Hence, in the providence of God, he was meant to arrive late, so that the Church would know that the body of the Mother of God, just as that of Christ her Son, was not to see corruption. Finally, in regard to Our Lady's bodily Assumption, if, after Our Lord's Resurrection, “the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose, coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, came into the holy city, and appeared to many” (Matt. 27:53, my emphasis), it would be inconceivable that she who bore the Holy One who saw no corruption should herself see corruption: “Thou shalt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption” (Acts 13:35). The Eastern Church celebrates the Dormition of Mary together with the feast of the Assumption on August 15th. The Western Church does not have a Mass in her liturgy today (August 13) specifically for the “Dormition,” but, in honoring Mary's actual death on her calendar, she awaits the major feast on the fifteenth by anticipation.
SAINT OF THE DAY FRIDAY, 14 AUGUST, 2026 SAINT MAXIMILLIAN KOLBE PRIEST AND MARTYR (8 January 1894 - 14 August 1941) - EARLY LIFE Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 In Zdunska Wola, in the Kingdom of Poland (then part of the Russian Empire). His father was German, his mother Polish. His parents were relatively poor, and in 1914, his father was captured by the Russians and hanged for his part in fighting for an independent Poland. Raymund developed a strong religious yearning from an early life. He recounts an early childhood vision of the Virgin Mary. This vision was significant because he chose both the path of sanctity and also to follow the path of a martyr. “That night, I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me, a Child of Faith. 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 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.” Aged only 13, Kolbe and his elder brother left home to enrol in the Conventual Franciscan seminary in Lwow. This seminary was in Austria-Hungary and it meant illegally crossing the border. In 1910, he was given the religious name Maximillian and was admitted as an initiate. He took his final vows as a monk in 1914. After a short period in Krakow, Poland – Kolbe went to study in Rome, Italy. He gained a doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1915. A few years later, he also gained a doctorate of theology in 1919 from the University of St. Bonaventure. Kolbe was ordained a priest and after completing his studies returned to the newly independent Poland in 1919. He settled in the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw. Towards the end of his studies, Kolbe suffered his first bout of tuberculosis and he became quite ill, often coughing up blood; the illness disrupted his studies. Throughout the rest of his life he experienced poor health, but never complained, seeing his illness as an opportunity to ‘suffer for Mary'. Kolbe was an active priest and particularly keen to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church. During his time in Rome, he witnessed angry protests by the Freemasons against the Vatican. Kolbe had a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary and he became an active participant in the Militia Immaculata or Army of Mary. “I felt the Immaculata drawing me to herself more and more closely… I had a custom of keeping a holy picture of one of the Saints to whom she appeared on my prie-dieu in my cell, and I used to pray to the Immaculata very fervently”. He felt a strong motivation to ‘fight for Mary' against enemies of the church. It was Kolbe who sought to reinvigorate the work of the MI (Militia Immaculata). Kolbe helped the Immaculata Friars to publish high pamphlets, books and a daily newspaper – Maly Dziennik. The monthly magazine grew to have a circulation of over 1 million and was influential amongst Polish Catholics. Kolbe even gained a radio licence and publicly broadcast his views on religion. Kolbe was successful in using the latest technology to spread his message. As well as writing extensive essays and pieces for the newspaper, Kolbe composedKOLBE IN JAPAN In 1930, Kolbe travelled to Japan, where he spent several years serving as a missionary. He founded a monastery on the outskirts of Nagasaki (the monastery survived the atomic blast, shielded by a mountain). He also entered into dialogue with local Buddhist priests and some of them became friends. However, increasingly ill, he returned to Poland in 1936. SECOND WORLD WAR At the start of the Second World War, Kolbe was residing in the friary at Niepokalanow, the “City of the Immaculata.” By that time, it had expanded from 18 friars to 650 friars – making it the largest Catholic house in Europe. When Poland was overrun by the Nazi forces in 1939, he was arrested under general suspicion on 13 September, but was released after three months. On being released, many Polish refugees and Jews sought sanctuary in Kolne's monastery. Kolbe and the community at Niepokalanów helped to hide, feed and clothe 3,000 Polish refugees, (of which 2,000 were Jews). Kolbe also published an illegal radio broadcast, in which he denounced the crimes of the Nazis. In 1941, he also published an edition of “The Knight of the Immaculate” offering strong criticism of the Nazis. KOLBE IN AUSCHWITZ Shortly after this publication, on the 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo for hiding Jewish people. After a brief internment in a notorious Polish prison, he was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and branded prisoner #16670. Kolbe was sent to the work camp. This involved carrying blocks of heavy stone for the building of the crematorium wall. The work party was overseen by a vicious ex-criminal ‘Bloody Krott' who came to single out Kolbe for particularly brutal treatment. Witnesses say Kolbe accepted his mistreatment and blows with surprising calm. Despite the awful conditions of Auschwitz, people report that Kolbe retained a deep faith, equanimity and dignity in the face of appalling treatment. Prisoners also report that he remained selfless, often sharing his meagre rations with others. In July 1941, three prisoners appeared to have escaped from the camp; as a result the Deputy Commander of Auschwitz ordered 10 men to be chosen to be starved to death in an underground bunker. When one of the selected men Franciszek Gajowniczek heard he was selected, he cried out ‘My wife! My children!” At this point Kolbe volunteered to take his place. Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated ‘I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children. Rather surprised, the commander accepted Kolbe in place of Gajowniczek. Franciszek Gajowniczek would miraculously survive Auschwitz, and would later be present at Kolbe's beatification in 1971. The men were led away to the underground bunker where they were to be starved to death. It is said that in the bunker, Kolbe would lead the men in prayer and singing hymns to Mary. When the guards checked the cell, Kolbe could be seen praying in the middle. After two weeks, nearly all the prisoners, except Kolbe had died due to dehydration and starvation. Because the guards wanted the cell emptied, the remaining prisoners and Kolbe were executed with a lethal injection. Those present say he calmly accepted death, lifting up his arm. His remains were unceremoniously cremated on 15 August. Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a "martyr of charity" in 1982. PATRON: Drug addiction; drug addicts; families; imprisoned people; journalists; political prisoners; prisoners; pro-life movement. PRAYER: O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe with a burning love for the Immaculate Virgin Mary and with zeal for souls and love of neighbor, graciously grant, through his intercession, that striving for your glory by eagerly serving others, we may be conformed, even until death, to your Son. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. the Immaculata Payer – the consecration to the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary. He also composed Polish songs to the Virgin Mary.
I was just thinking about Saint Maximilian this morning before Mass . He was doing such incredible work but was cut off right in the middle of it. God's Ways are certainly not ours.
