Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church

Today is the Optional Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (969-1038). Vaik, son of Geza, Duke of Hungary, was baptized about 985 by St. Adalbert of Prague who gave him the name of Stephen. He was chosen by God to bring his people to the Christian faith. With the assistance of monks from Burgundy, he established bishoprics, founded several monasteries and re-organized the whole life of the country. Pope Silvester II offered him the privilege of being crowned king and the ceremony took place on December 25, 1000. His great zeal for the spread of the Catholic faith earned him the title of apostolic king and apostle of Hungary. He died on August 15, 1038, the feast of the Assumption of our Lady, to whom he had consecrated his kingdom.

Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Holy Day of Obligation. On November 1, 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption. Thus he solemnly proclaimed that the belief whereby the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the close of her earthly life, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, definitively forms part of the deposit of faith, received from the Apostles. To avoid all that is uncertain the Pope did not state either the manner or the circumstances of time and place in which the Assumption took place--only the fact of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, is the matter of the definition.

The Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (1894-1941) is universally celebrated by the Church today. St. Maximilian was born in Zdunska Wola, Poland as Raymond Kolbe. He consecrated himself to the Lord in the Franciscan Order. Filled with love for the Virgin, he founded the Militia of the Immaculate Mary and, with his preaching and writing, undertook an intense apostolic mission in Europe and Asia. Imprisoned in Auschwitz during the Second World War, he offered himself in exchange for the father of a large family who was to be executed. He was given a lethal injection when he failed to die fast enough from starvation in the concentration camp and died on August 14, 1941. Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed him the "Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century."