Of
the religious orders I interviewed recently, the Franciscan Friars of the
Immaculate (FI) was the one with which I had worked
personally: about 20 years ago, as project manager for their then-new book
publishing arm, the Academy of the Immaculate.
A relatively new religious institute, the friars
strive, in the words of their website, "to be perfectly conformed to the
poor, humble, crucified Jesus through a life of charity, supernatural
obedience, and poverty. They are totally consecrated to the Immaculate Virgin
after the recent example offered by St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe.” The FI continue
the work of this Polish martyr through evangelization and serving the poor in a
variety of ways internationally.
When I interviewed Fr.
Johannes Smith, FI, I was touched, as with the other orders, by the friars’ life
of complete self-gift and service. Most inspiring to me was their utter
reliance on God. Witness Fr. Johannes’ answer to my question "Do the friars
ever actually go hungry?"
There is one case that we know
of where they tried to starve a Franciscan, and it didn’t work: and
that’s St. Maximilian Kolbe. They put him in the starvation bunker. Already he
had been giving away most of his food ration to the other prisoners; he had
tuberculosis—he was a sick man to begin with—and yet he survived. He was one of
the last of the prisoners to go...
JF:
And they
gave him an injection finally...
FrJS: Yes, a lethal injection; that’s
how he was killed. So it’s one of the beautiful things about being a
Franciscan: on the one hand, we don’t know humanly speaking where our next
meal’s coming from, but on the other hand, we know it will be coming from
Divine Providence.