Why his birthday is special and explanation of his name

Maximilian's story of his birth date and his name is one that is very special to us. Normally we've named our children with a Biblical name followed by a Saint middle name, but this time we switched it up.

Max was born on April 21. When I first heard the date, I thought "That date is important, but I can't remember why." We looked to see if anyone else was born that day, threw the date around, and could not come up with a reason it was important.

However, we realized 2 days after his birthday was the Feast of Divine Mercy. Now THAT day is special to us for many reasons. First, on the Feast of Divine Mercy, 2008, I joined the Roman Catholic Church (After finding out the day before we were pregnant with Hannah.) Divine Mercy has always been special to us for that reason alone. Then, the week of Divine Mercy, 2015, we were in Rome, where Z&H received their First Holy Communion from their uncle in St. Peter's Basilica. Again, making Easter week/the feast of Divine Mercy special for us. Then last year, the week of Divine Mercy, 2016, we were driving to Poland, which would be one of our greatest vacations in Europe. I'll come back to that more in a minute...

While in the hospital, about 3 days after he was born, it all of a sudden hit me why April 21 stood out in my mind. Those that knew us when we were engaged will recall that we had a wedding date set, but we realized that it was pointless to wait 4 months apart, and changed the date. In my church growing up, the marriage prep took several months to complete, but in the Catholic Church we were getting married in, it took 1 weekend. We completed that one weekend in August before Jon deployed, and so we changed our wedding date to January, for right after Jon got back from his deployment. (Six days after he got back to be exact!!) However, our original wedding date... you guessed it! April 21!

On our trip to Poland, we learned about many of the great Saints of the Catholic faith. St. Pope John Paul the Second had always been one of Jon's favorites, and we really learned more about him while in Poland. We also learned a great deal about St. Faustina, who Jesus gave the image of Divine Mercy to, with the words "Jesus I trust in you." And finally, St. Maximilian Kolbe.

Maximilian Kolbe is the patron Saint of families and the prolife movement. Born in 1894. He joined the Conventional Franciscans and eventually founded The Army of the Immaculate One with the goal of bringing about the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Church, through the intercession of Mary. In 1918 he was ordained and promoted Mary throughout Poland, and eventually opened monasteries in Japan and India. He opened his monastery as a hospital for those in needed, including hiding 2,000 Jews from German persecution, during WWII.  In Feb. 1941, the monastery was shut down and he was sent to prison. Three months later he was sent to Auschwitz. During his time there, he led prayers with the other prisoners and remained calm. Three months after arriving, some prisoners escaped, and others from his cell block were picked to die of starvation as an example to others. One man was picked and he cried out "My wife! My children!", and Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take his place. After two weeks of starvation and dehydration, Fr. Kolbe was still alive, so the guards gave him a shot of carbolic acid. He died on August 14, 1941. He was canonized in 1981 by Pope John Paul II, and the man he gave his life for survived Auschwitz and was at Maximilian Kolbe's canonization.

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz and see the cell where St. Maximilian Kolbe died. His story, and his sacrifice was one that we found amazing, and therefore we named our son after him.

As for Jude, it originally did not hold any special meaning. We were really wanting to use Maximilian, so kept throwing out names that might work with it. Jon threw out Jude, and I said Hmm, I like it. The more we thought about it, several things stood out. It was a Biblical name. St. Jude is also the patron Saint of helpless causes (and let's be honest, we seem to have many of those at times). and finally, Jon has an Aunt Judy that he really respects and looks up to, so it was honoring a family member.

The name seemed perfect, but like a big name. I was afraid to name him such a big name until I saw him. Therefore, we reserved telling people this was his name, until i had the chance to see him. And when we did, and people commented on his size, being a big boy, I felt that he could handle his big name.