Dear friends,

My name is Lauren and I am currently a Junior at USC and have been a part of the Caruso Catholic Center. This summer, I will be going on a pilgrimage to Poland following in the footsteps of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

After learning more about St. Maximilian Kolbe during my Marian Consecration last semester held by the Fr. Kolbe Missionaries, I felt a strong desire to follow his example of daily self-sacrifice in the little things and to give my all to God and my neighbor the way St. Maximilian Kolbe did. I believe this pilgrimage will be a powerful experience in learning how to be more like Christ and become closer to Him through the Blessed Virgin Mary as this was how St. Maximilian Kolbe lived his life.

This pilgrimage will include visiting St. Maximilian Kolbe’s birthplace, baptismal font, the site of two crowns, Niepokalanów, Auschwitz, and Sw. Maksymiliana Kolbe Centrum. On his feast day, we will have mass at Auschwitz in the cell where St. Maximilian Kolbe was martyred.

We will also visit the convent where St. Faustina once lived and prayed before the miraculous image of the Divine Mercy, as well as places significant to the great St. John Paul II.

As someone with a deep devotion to Divine Mercy, I am currently reading The Diary of St. Faustina and would be tremendously grateful to visit her convent and pray for her intercession there. St. John Paul II is also another saint whom I look up to, especially after reading Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves (one of which is Poland).

I would love to invite you to consider supporting me, whether financially through donations or spiritually through prayers, or both! Know that you will be in my prayers during this special pilgrimage and I will be praying for Our Lady of Czestochowa, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Faustina, and St. John Paul II to intercede for you.

Thank you and God Bless,

Lauren Wehn