Apprenticeship with St. Max

By Fr. Matthew Montag, Parochial Vicar

One of the greatest gifts a priest can experience is his first assignment, a great experience for many reasons! Consolations abound, especially during the first year, as the Lord helps the man transition into priestly life. Many guys know this and often look forward to it. I can attest to having the same experience, but I never expected that the first major consolation of my first assignment would happen only a few minutes after I was ordained. 

Standing in the sanctuary at the cathedral, facing Archbishop Schnurr, my hands were still covered with Sacred Chrism, and the Holy Spirit had just finished taking over my person and uniting it with Jesus. My classmates and I were listening attentively as the archbishop was revealing to each of us and the rest of the archdiocese where Christ was sending us.  

About middle of the way through, my name was called. I had been assigned to St. Maximilian Kolbe in Liberty Twp. My first thought was, ‘this makes all the sense in the world.’ At the time, I didn’t know much about St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish. That consolation would develop as I got to know the parish, but the first major consolation of my priesthood was that I had been assigned to a parish whose patron saint was one of my closest friends and mentors.

My apprenticeship with St. Max began my initial stages of being called to be a priest. After going back to confession for the first time in a long time, the Holy Spirit lead me into praying a daily rosary and then consecrating myself to Jesus through Mary. I first encountered St. Max while preparing for total consecration to Jesus through Mary via Fr. Michael Gaitley’s popular book, 33 Days to Morning Glory. It was through reading about St. Max’s magnanimity and heroic charity that God began prompting me to follow Him by being a priest.

There were many things about St. Max that were impactful and inspiring. But there was one part of his story that had a deep impact on my discernment. St. Max was giant in the spiritual life and wanted to win the whole world for Christ, but he wasn’t just a man of desire, he literally recruited over 800 men to join his monastery to be completely given over to Mary in order to win the whole world for Christ. He even clearly outlined the means to achieve this goal through promoting the recitation of the rosary, handing out miraculous medals, and bringing people to consecrating themselves entirely to Jesus through Mary. Even though St. Max’s zeal for souls was so inspiring, that wasn’t the biggest impact on my discernment to be a priest. 

One of the ways God communicated this call to me was through the Scripture verse, John 15:13, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” St. Max’s life ended when he offered to take the place of a man who had been randomly selected for execution in Auschwitz. When the prison guard called the man’s name, he began hysterically pleading for mercy because his wife and children were both still alive. St. Max simply stepped out of line and walked up to the guard and offered to take the man’s place in the starvation bunker. The guard looked at him and asked, “who are you?” and St. Max responded, “I am a Catholic priest. I would like to take his place.” The force of St. Max’s charity had the power to overwhelm the guard to the point that instead of shooting St. Max for stepping out of line, he accepted his offer. St. Maximilian Kolbe succeeded in laying down his life for his friend.

It was during this time that I sensed the Lord inviting me to make a similar offering of my life to be a priest. The Lord was inviting me to offer my life in service of the Gospel to bring that same Gospel to the many friends he had blessed me with throughout my life. Like St. Max, God was also asking me to lay down my life for my friends. Thanks to St. Max, I was able to say ‘yes.’

It’s easy to envision God bringing a saint into someone’s life briefly to help them make a big decision. But in characteristic fashion, God was only getting started with my apprenticeship under the great St. Maximilian Kolbe. I eventually said yes to the Lord and began the process of formal discernment. About two years later, I began my seven years of formation at Mt. St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati, OH. 

One of the surprises of seminary was that for the first time in my life, I was truly thriving in academics. I had always taken school seriously and kept my GPA high, but it was never my 100% focus as I had a wide range of other interests. I always saw my future blossoming more through a mixture of competency, networking, and relationships. Versus having the highest GPA in the class. To my surprise, once I began studying philosophy and theology, I experienced a love of formal studies for the first time in my life. 

What was even more surprising was that instead of being a general practitioner in my studies, I quickly became a notable specialist. Once I got to seminary, I spent the better part of three years reading and writing about Mary and the Holy Spirit in the thought of St. Maximilian Kolbe. 

One question captivated St. Max’s mind and heart; “Who are you, O Immaculata?” Ever since he had an encounter with Mary as a young man, St. Max burned to understand the mystery of what God had done with Mary. St. Max would devote much of his life to better understanding this mystery.

This was where the next part of my apprenticeship under St. Max unfolded. A little bit of St. Max’s zeal to better understand Mary rubbed on me as well. A little bit of anything St. Max did is objectively a lot. The little bit I got turned into a 64-page optional thesis that I wrote in my second year of seminary during “my free time.” My thesis asked what Mary’s role in the New Evangelization was, based upon the developing theological understanding of Mary’s relationship to the Holy Spirit. My time reading and writing about St. Max’s insights was one of my most cherished times in seminary.

St. Max would continue to accompany me through the remaining years of seminary, albeit in more of a background role after my thesis. During this time, other saints like Pope St. John Paul II and St. John of the Cross took more prominent roles in my formation. Even so, Fr. Kolbe always remained close by. 

The next time St. Max showed up was at the end of seminary, when it was time to choose a chalice. As a man approaches ordination, the question most guys ask is, “how do I go about finding a chalice?” Like everything else, the Lord had been preparing me for this as well. Years earlier, I encountered a beautiful chalice in a Carmelite friary which gave me the idea for the design I wanted. 

Then one day, I saw a chalice on the front page of a catalog in our mailroom with a similar design. Even though the price was higher than I had anticipated, the Lord made it clear that this was the chalice He wanted me to have, and that He would come up with the money.

The chalice I chose had nine spots for custom enamel work. The vision for the chalice I felt the Lord was giving me was three Marian saints, three Marian dogmas, and three Scripture verses associated directly with Mary. One verse in English, one verse in Latin, and one verse in Greek. The three languages which I had engaged my theological studies while in seminary.

The three Marian saints I chose were St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John of the Cross, and Pope St. John Paul II. These three saints were chosen for their devotion to Mary, and because each played a prominent role in my formation.

St. Maximilian Kolbe helped me understand the seriousness of the mission of the Church and how the Holy Spirit was the Person who powered the mission. He was also heroic inspiration for living a disciplined and virtuous life, especially living out the virtues of fortitude, courage, magnanimity, and universal charity.

St. John of the Cross convinced me that to be the best priest possible, I couldn’t make being a good priest the primary goal of my life. Rather, my primary goal needed to be union with God, to pursue Him above all things and then allow my ministry to flow from that union, so that it’s no longer “I who live, but Christ living in me.” Another way to say it is that St. John of the Cross helped me understand that personal prayer was the most important thing in my life.

Pope St. John Paul II showed up at various times in formation, at the beginning, middle, and end. God used St. John Paul II to help me envision what my pastoral governance would look like. St. John Paul II was gifted with a charisma that he would lean on while in places of leadership within the Church. Ultimately, even as pope, St. John Paul II imbued a warm pastoral charity. St. John Paul II wanted me to understand that I had received a similar gift and it was something I was also to use to build up the Church.

The other thing Pope St. John Paul II helped me understand was the importance of allowing the Holy Spirit to form me into my authentic self, that the path was integration of my personality into my faith and vocation versus trying to fit into a mold of what all priests “are supposed to look like.” Pope St. John Paul II explored this idea both theologically and philosophically in works on personalism, as well as being a living witness to the joy of allowing the Holy Spirit to form him into his authentic self.

One of my favorite stories that captures this was when Cardinal Karol Wojtyla (future Pope St. John Paul II) was approached and asked if it was “unbecoming of a Cardinal of the Church to spend so much time skiing?” Cardinal Wojtyla, an avid skier and mountaineer throughout his whole life, continued his love for skiing and mountaineering well into his time in ministry. He was even known for helping other priests and even bishops come to enjoy the same things he did. Seeing an opportunity to teach and make a point, he responded, that “it was only unbecoming of a Cardinal of the Church to ski poorly.” The Holy Spirit had inspired Pope St. John Paul II to live his priesthood in a missionary mode, and it was something the Holy Spirit was inviting me to do as well.

The third time St. Maximilian Kolbe showed up in my life was the consolation of being assigned to a parish whose patron was one of my best friends. As time went on, not surprisingly, that consolation developed into serving the people of St. Max as well. Seeing God’s handy work so many times before and in so many powerful ways, I wasn’t in least bit surprised that God placed me exactly where He knew I would flourish. Serving the people of St. Max, under St. Max’s apprenticeship, wrapped tightly in Mary’s mantel. 

I want to end by taking the opportunity to thank God and all of you for being such a great first assignment. It’s a consolation to have St. Max as our patron and it’s been a consolation serving all of you as well. The first two years have been amazing and I’m very much looking forward to year three. First assignments are often a great gift in a man’s priesthood. Thanks to all of you, Fr. Jim, our deacons, and our parish staff, as well as St. Max and Our Lady’s prayers, God decided that I too would get to experience this great gift.