St Maximilian Kolbe in Japan

The little-known story of St Maximilian Kolbe in Japan will be studied at a Zoom event this Friday, organised by the Benedict XVI Institute's Maggie Gallagher, Georgetown Professor Kevin Doak, Wiseblood Books founder Joshua Hren and Archbishop Cordileone.

Register to receive the Zoom link here: www.eventbrite.com/x/st-maximilian-kolbe-in-japan-tickets-163940686005).

This event is part of Benedict XVI Institute's 'Year for the Homeless' celebrating St Maximilian Kolbe's role as patron saint of drug addicts.

St Maximilian Kolbe, 'the Saint of Auschwitz' might also be known as the 'the Saint of Nagasaki' - for this missionary, who founded a 'Garden of the Immaculata' in Japan that still exists today, inspired a wave of Japanese literary converts include a woman considered one of the greatest living Japanese novelists: Ayako Sono.

At this event, Benedict XVI Institute and Wiseblood Books will announce they are partnering to republish Sono's 1973 novel 'Miracles' in an English translation by Professor Doak, the Nippon Foundation professor of Japanese Culture at Georgetown University.

"Wiseblood is so very grateful to be able to refract some light on Sono Ayako's contribution the Catholic literary tradition, as her novels are typically eclipsed by Endo. Her sincere and sober way of meditating on the nature of self-sacrifice and the possibility of believable miracles in a disenchanted age is deeply moving," said Joshua Hren, who (along with Benedict XVI Institute's poet-in-residence James Matthew Wilson), is the founder of a new Catholic MFA creative writing program for Thomas More University in Houston.

"The publication of this book is also a labour of love," Hren said. "I have long had a love for St Maximilian Kolbe; I consecrated myself to Mary in 2006 through his Militia Immaculata, and soon thereafter nearly became a Conventual Franciscan out of a desire to emulate such a singular saint. Over the years, every time someone brings up a concern with addiction--their own or a friend or family member's--I always turn to St Maximilian Kolbe, the patron of addicts, and have as if seen his invisible interventions through the healings of several addicts."

"Even after he left Japan, Father Maximilian Kolbe's influence on the Japanese imagination continued, largely through the little-known (in America) Japanese wave of literary conversions," writes Professor Doak. "The story of St Maximilian Kolbe stirs hearts and souls across the globe. Ayako Sono's novel cuts to the heart of the Christian miracle: a love so profound and deep that the sacrifice of one's own life seems a small price to pay. This, above all, is the miracle we need today."

"Martin Scorsese call your office. We live by stories and serious literature that shows how the Gospel inspires not only saints but artists will inspire new generations of Catholic artists," says Maggie Gallagher, executive director of the Benedict XVI Institute, "The Benedict XVI Institute is very proud to have played a role in bringing this profound novel to a new generation of Catholic readers in America."

LINKS

Ayako Sono, Miracles (Wiseblood Books, 2021): www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p114/miracles-sono-ayako.html

Benedict Institute - www.BenedictInstitute.org