EASTER IV (B)

Ted Wotjkowski considered himself an ordinary person when he immigrated to Chicago from Poland after WW II. He worked as an engineer & raised a family. But as a young man he was a special witness to one of the Good Shepherd heroes of the 20^{th century. After the German invasion in 1939, he went underground. When things became too risky, he tried to get into Hungary but was caught at the border, & sent to Auschwitz when it was still a place for criminals & critics of the Nazi regime.}

The prisoners were treated cruelly. The guards saved their special hatred & punishment for priests. After a prisoner escape, ten prisoners were picked at random for execution by starvation. One of those picked began sobbing, “My wife & my children! Who will take care of them?” Suddenly another prisoner spoke up & said to the commander, “I will take the place of this man with the wife & children.” Wotjkowski noticed that there was something serene & remarkable about the volunteer’s demeanor. The commander sneered, “You must be one of those vermin priests.” But he accepted the offer.

The volunteer wasn’t just any priest, but the well-known Franciscan Fr. Maximilian Kolbe who ran a publishing house for religious materials before the war. When locked in the bunker, Kolbe led the doomed men in prayer & hymns. When all had died except Kolbe, the impatient Nazis had a doctor inject poison to finish him off. The man he replaced was an anonymous peasant farmer, but Kolbe was one of the best known & accomplished men in Poland . Yet he exchanged his life for the other.

Kolbe not only saved the farmer but Wotjkowski himself, who, inspired by Kolbe’s act, endured years of backbreaking labor & abuse in the camp. Finally, in 1945, while being force marched to Dachau , Wotjkowski escaped & took refuge with a German priest who hid him & fed him until the Allies rolled into Germany .

Fr. Kolbe was indeed a Good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. At a time when some priests have been less than shepherds, much less good, we need to be reminded that there are indeed good shepherds in the Catholic Church: not just Kolbe but the German priest who fed & hid Wotjkowski at great risk, the faithful ones who baptize, marry & anoint family members, who guide & encourage their flock along the journey. Catholic priests may not be noted for their preaching ability, but they do have one advantage: celibacy makes the point that they have put their lives where their mouths are.

There are moments like this when we can glimpse unconditional love, which is neither a personal achievement nor a moral preference. We cannot boast of it, since it does not appear as something of our own making. We can only accept it as what it is – a gift of God, who permits us such glimpses to remind us that in this messy family we call the church, the Good Shepherd walks with us still. AMEN!