Pearls of life

Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga (1901-1952) ALBERTO HURTADO CRUCHAGA was born in Viña del Mar, Chile, on 22 January 1901; he was orphaned when he was four years old by the death of his father. His mother had to sell, at a loss, their modest property in order to pay the family’s debts. As a further consequence, Alberto and his brother had to go to live with relatives and were often moved from one family to another. From an early age, therefore, he experienced what it meant to be poor, to be without a home and at the mercy of others. He became a member of the Sodality of Our Lady to the Jesuit College in Santiago. He developed a lively interest in the poor, spending time with them in the most miserable neighborhoods every Sunday afternoon. When he completed his secondary education in 1917, Alberto wanted to become a Jesuit, but he was advised to delay the realization of this desire in order to take care of his mother and his younger brother. By working in the afternoons and evenings, he ...

Maximilian Kolbe August 14 Maximilian was born in 1894 in Poland and became a Franciscan. He contracted tuberculosis and, though he recovered, he remained frail all his life. Before his ordination as a priest, Maximilian founded the Immaculata Movement devoted to Our Lady. After receiving a doctorate in theology, he spread the Movement through a magazine entitled "The Knight of the Immaculata" and helped form a community of 800 men, the largest in the world. Maximilian went to Japan where he built a comparable monastery and then on to India where he furthered the Movement. In 1936 he returned home because of ill health. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was imprisoned and released for a time. But in 1941 he was arrested again and sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz. On July 31, 1941, in reprisal for one prisoner's escape, ten men were chosen to die. Father Kolbe offered himself in place of a young husband and father. And he was the last to die, enduri...

Fr. William Paul Macwan SJ Fr. William Paul was ‘pritipatr’ means to say ‘worthy of love of all’, my companion Sunil wrote to me . Fr. William was loved by all and he loved all. He was loved by his companions and people. It was very much visible at his funeral and at the prayer service. Many came to pay him homage. His love for nature, music, art, dance, poetry, photography, sports, and scouts in young days was part of his ministry as a priest. He went about helping people. Once a catechist master told me an incident about Fr. William. They went to a village to celebrate mass. And Fr. William began his visits to the families. He came across a house. The people of the street told him, “Father, the man in there, is suffering from T.B. Don’t go in.” Fr. William went in and saw him in a very bad health, he said, “How can you leave this man to die this way?” He immediately took the man in a jeep himself as none came forward to touch the man. He dressed the man and took him to the...