by Diego Hernández Herrera
Suffering from an addiction —or even a habitual vice— can be quite embarrassing, especially when you are a Christian, because you are aware of how serious such a sin is. It can also feel disheartening to faln back into a sin from which you had already repented.
These natural feelings of shame and hopelessness can be tools that the Enemy uses against us. He tries to convince us that sin has the last word. This is a lie
To prove that Christ’s mercy can heal everything —including the most repugnant habit and the most severe addiction— we have the lives of saints like St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Mark Ji TianXiang, and St. Augustine. They faced many of our battles, and now they encourage us from Heaven, assuring us that it is worthwhile to say yes to Christ daily.
St. Maximilian Kolbe
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894, in the territory of the Russian Empire, in what is now Poland.
At the age of 12, he had a vision in which the Virgin Mary offered him two crowns, one white and one red. The white crown represented purity and the red crown martyrdom. Mary asked him which crown he wanted to accept and Kolbe said both. The following year, he and his older brother entered the Order of Friars Minor Conventual.
At 18, he began studying theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. At the age of 23, in October 1917, he founded the association Militia Immaculatae, dedicated to promoting devotion to Mary. The following year he was ordained a priest.
He returned to Poland to teach at a Franciscan seminary and founded the newspaper Rycerz Niepokalanej, which means “Knight of the Immaculate Conception”. At the age of 36, in 1930, he traveled to Japan, where he founded another newspaper and continued to promote devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
After returning to Poland for the second time, he was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 for his anti-Nazi views but was released soon after. Soon after, during World War II, Kolbe and his religious brothers used the main office of their newspaper to house between 2,000 and 3,000 Polish refugees, mostly Jews, and continued to issue anti-Nazi publications.
In February 1941 he was arrested again, on charges of aiding the Polish resistance and hiding Jews, and was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There he continued his priestly ministry, hearing confessions and celebrating Mass with smuggled bread.
At the end of July 1941, a prisoner from Kolbe’s block escaped. As punishment, the Nazis chose 10 men to die. The Franciscan priest volunteered to go in place of Franciszek Gajowniczek, who was married and had small children. Kolbe and the other 9 contemned were then imprisoned to starve to death, but after 2 weeks Kolbe was still alive. So, on the eve of the feast of the Assumption of Mary, August 14, 1941, they finally killed Maximilian Kolbe using an injection of carbolic acid. The cell in which he died is a shrine today.
Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI in 1970 and canonized by St. John Paul II in 1982. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the person who was saved because Kolbe offered to go in his place, survived the concentration camp and attended both the beatification and canonization masses.
St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of prisoners, journalists, and drug addicts. The reason he is the patron saint of drug addicts probably has to do with the fact that he died due to the lethal injection of a toxic substance, but —whatever the reason— his life is an incredible testimony of God’s grace and we can trust this saint to intercede for our freedom from Heaven.
St. Mark Ji TianXiang
St. Mark Ji TianXiang was a devout Christian and physician by profession who lived in China during the 19th century. Not many details of his life are known, but we do know that at some point he became violently ill with a stomach disease and treated himself with opium. At the time, this was a common medical procedure, but Mark quickly became dependent on the substance. .
As he struggled with the shame and scandal of his addiction, Mark frequented confession, refusing to believe that his vice would have the last word. However, his confessor began to believe that Mark had lost the desire to renounce his sin. At that time, no one yet knew that addiction is an illness that
must be professionally treated. Since a valid confession requires a firm desire not to sin again, and believing that Mark did not want to renounce opium, his confessor forbade him to go to confession or partake of the sacraments until he was free of his addiction.
For some, this prohibition would have been enough to cause anger and drive them away from the Church. But Mark Ji TianXiang, even amid his weakness, knew that Christ and the Church loved him, so he remained committed to his faith.
For 30 years he was denied access to communion and confession. For 30 years Mark continued to succumb to the temptation of opium. But each time, he tried again, never tiring of trusting in God’s mercy.
Finally, at the turn of the 20th century, a rebellion in China began to persecute Christians. Mark was imprisoned along with his son, six of his grandchildren, and two daughters-in-law. Many of his fellow prisoners believed he would be among the first to deny the faith, but he —without hesitation— asked to be executed last so as not to let any of his
family members die alone. In the end, no fear or pain could prevent Marcos Ji TianXiang from singing litanies to the Virgin Mary when it was his turn to be executed.
Today, despite having spent his last decades unable to partake of any sacraments and unable to overcome his addiction here on Earth, Mark is a canonized saint of the Catholic Church and we celebrate his feast day every July 9.
St. Augustine
Augustine was born in Thagaste, a town in Roman Africa that we know today as Souk Ahras in Algeria, on November 13, 354. His father, Patricius, was not a believer but was baptized on his deathbed. His mother, Monica, was a baptized and devout Catholic. As for Augustine himself, although he was made a catechumen in his infancy, he was never baptized in his childhood.
While still quite young, Augustine was sent to study grammar and rhetoric at Madaura, and then to Carthage. In Carthage, around the age of 18, he found a partner with whom he lived unmarried for about 14 years and who bore him a son named Adeodatus.
Also in Carthage, Augustine put Catholicism aside to believe in Manichaeism – a religion of Persian origins that, in North Africa, developed as a variant of Christianity. For 9 years he firmly adhered to Manichaeism and defended it fiercely, to his mother’s dismay.
During this time, Augustine was becoming aware of God, but he was still unwilling to renounce his carnal sins. He later admits in his Confessions that he asked God to “give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
Around the age of 29 he moved to Milan, then the capital of the Western Roman Empire, to teach rhetoric and participate in the imperial court. Then, he decided to abandon his partner —Adeodatus’ mother— to open the way to a possible more advantageous marriage. On the other hand, he met St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, whose teachings were a great influence in his conversion process.
At the age of 33, Augustine was baptized in Milan by St. Ambrose. He then returned to Africa and at the age of 37 was ordained a priest in the diocese of the city of Hippo, which we know today as Annaba/Bône in Algeria. Five years later, around the age of 42, he was ordained bishop of that same city and began writing his major theological works, including Confessions and The City of God.
After serving several years as bishop, St. Augustine died when the Vandals besieged the city of Hippo.
What can we learn from the lives of these saints?
St. Maximilian, St. Mark and St. Augustine lived very different lives. St. Maximilian never lived an addiction per se, but his life is a tremendous inspiration of dedication to others and he is the most famous patron saint of those who suffer from addiction. St. Mark was neither a priest nor a religious and struggled with his addiction until the last of his earthly days, but he still made it to heaven. St. Augustine lived a youth full of sexual immorality, but by grace he was converted and managed to conquer the virtue of celibacy.
In one way or another, these saints show us that addiction does not have the last word. They show us that God’s mercy is greater than any sin and that it is always in our hands to say yes to God.
St. Maximilian, St. Mark, and St. Augustine pray for us to obtain from Christ the grace to be free, pure, and joyful.
Bibliography :
Hunter-Kilmer, M. (2017, 6 July). St. Mark Ji Tianxiang: opium addict, martyr and Saint. Aleteia.
Tornau, C. (2019, September 25). Saint Augustine (E. N. Zalta, Ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/augustine/
Westminster Abbey (n. d.). St Maximilian Kolbe | Westminster Abbey.
Image: Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash
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