By DEXTER DUGGAN
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Books have been a steppingstone through life for scholarly Remi Ruiz, who has collected them for decades. He met his future wife, Alma, at a bookstore. Today, if he wanted, he could pave the floors beneath their feet at home with books, if that wasn’t being disrespectful of the printed word.
Welcoming a visitor to their bookcase-lined living room that looks more like a library in this Phoenix suburb, the Ruizes speak of their dream to put their thousands of volumes into service at a hoped-for center for the Blessed Mother as St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe revered her, the Immaculata, the Mother of the Savior who would lead others to Christ.
“One of our dreams is to have a center —” Alma Ruiz begins a sentence.
“ — to study, teach, and publicize who Mary Immaculate really is,” her husband, Remi, pitches in, expressing the hope for “a Marian retreat study center.”
The couple, who both teach at a Catholic school, hope to find others to join in their dream, whether the proposed center ends up in Arizona or elsewhere.
“. . .We’re looking for ideas . . . then we can begin to act,” he says. Maybe some “landed gentry” could offer space for the project.
“As our Lady wills,” Remi says during the July 16 interview.
They have a business card proclaiming, “Ave Maria! Academy of the Immaculata.” It gives their phone number, 602-681-7146, and email, artotustuus13@gmail.com.
“One of the key things in our hope and prayers is to promote the Marian culture of St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. John Paul II, Mother Teresa,” he adds later.
St. John Paul called St. Kolbe “the apostle of our difficult age,” Remi says.
The scholarly St. Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan friar, was executed in 1941 by the German National Socialists at their Auschwitz death camp after the Nazis cut short his career that used modern communications to evangelize.
He was canonized a saint in 1982 by future St. John Paul II, a Pope who came from a background similar to Kolbe’s as a European oppressed by Godless totalitarians.
One biographical sketch of St. Kolbe says he “was very active in promoting the Immaculate Virgin Mary and is known as the Apostle of Consecration to Mary,” organizing the spiritual “Army of the Immaculate One,” the Militia Immaculata.
In addition to the Ruizes’ living-room library, books line bedroom, family-room, and one-car-garage shelves. There are books in a bathroom linen cabinet.
How many books in the home? “Myriads upon myriads,” Remi jokes. “I thought I had 3,000, my students think I have 5,000.”
Catholic newspapers including The Wanderer also are on file there.
The Ruizes teach at Ville de Marie Academy, an independent, orthodox K-12 Catholic school in Scottsdale, recognized by the Diocese of Phoenix. The school is on the campus of St. Daniel the Prophet Parish.
He teaches theology and she teaches Latin, Spanish, and singing in schola cantorum.
Remi, 54, says he began to gather books when he worked as a librarian in the early days of Christendom College in Front Royal, Va. , before he left in the fall of 1982.
In addition to religious works, the Ruizes have books on topics including architecture, music, science, mathematics, finance, medicine, philosophy, and Satanism. Remi points out that he has a section of “heretical Catholic” writers, too.
Although he’s ready to accept books no longer needed or wanted by others, Remi looks at this as the loss of valuables. “It’s a sad thing when people are getting rid of treasuries,” he says.
He has a few moral theology books in Latin from the 18th and 19th centuries, and points out a book binding that was made from pages of an even older book in Latin.
Alma holds up a copy of Aim Higher, a collection of St. Kolbe’s writings, and says: “He talks about making our Lady known and loved, then she will introduce Jesus into hearts. . . . Now more than ever, his message is needed” in the culture.
Remi adds that St. Kolbe said not just to be intellectuals to fight in a culture war, but also to learn on one’s knees in humble prayer.
Books still are needed in the Internet age, Remi says. “There’s something beautiful about the printed word” being read by the fireplace.
As for establishing their Immaculata center, “We’re certainly open to any practical suggestions,” Alma says.
Remi adds, “I see it that the center would be open to all aspects of promoting growth in holiness,” including art, culture, philosophy, and with application for scientific discoveries.
God doesn’t just pick those who already are accomplished; He provides people with the needed qualifications, Remi says. “God does not choose the qualified. He qualifies those He has chosen. Those who are open to the voice of God are those who have a voice to share.”
St. Kolbe said his friars should aim higher, Remi says. “Kolbe told his friars, I demand not only that you become saints, but that you become great saints,” and the path to sanctity “is through the Immaculata.”
As for achieving their goals for the Immaculata center, “It’s on our Lady’s timetable,” Remi says, noting that St. Kolbe had his own problems with being patient. “His difficulty in life was working with patience. . . . Our Lady really polished him up in that department.”
Remi said Wanderer readers should become aware of other recognitions of the sainted friar, too, including the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Marytown, in Libertyville, Ill. (marytown.com).
After the couple first met at the Tempe, Ariz., bookstore where she worked, Alma recalls, “I was so moved by the way he spoke of our Lady as the Immaculate . . . as a mother who loves us. . . . I thought, wow.”
They both were on a pilgrimage to Rome in 2001 when Remi proposed marriage. That proposal wouldn’t have been made at St. Peter’s Basilica, would it, The Wanderer inquires speculatively. “Yes!” Alma replies.
After Alma serves a snack of sponge cake with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries at the Scottsdale home, Remi plays an interlude of exercises on the upright piano. How long has he been playing piano? Since third grade. And, he says, Alma is learning to play a ukulele that a student gave her. “It’s fun,” she laughs.
When The Wanderer notes that there’s a copy of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook on a table by the kitchen, so not every tome in this home is spiritual, Alma replies, “We also have The Vatican Cookbook!”
“So even the cookbooks are Catholic,” Remi pronounces as he surveys his literary kingdom.
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