Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Knight of the Immaculate

Summary:

Raymund Kolbe was bornin Poland on January 8, 1894, to weaver Jules Kolbe and midwife Marianna Dąbrowska, who were Franciscan tertiaries. The second of three boys, Raymund was a little too boisterous for his mother's liking. One day, she reprimanded him by asking what would become of him when he grew up. This reproach provoked such an awakening in the ten-year-old that he turned directly to the Virgin Mary to find out what he would do in the future. She appeared to him and presented him with two crowns, one white and one red, symbolizing purity and martyrdom. The Virgin invited him to choose: Raymund chose both. From that moment on, he resolved to become better every day.

His whole life would be illuminated by this unforgettable encounter with Mary. His mother noticed a change in her son, who often hid to pray inside the small family shrine, a simple cupboard containing the icon of the Virgin of Czestochowa. So it was only natural that at age 13 he enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary in Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) later that year, where he continued his secondary education. At 16 he entered the novitiate, where he chose a religious name Maximilian. On All Saints Day 1914, he professed his final vows, adding "Maria" to his religious name.

On October 16, 1917, in Rome, with six student friends, Kolbe organized the Militia Immaculatae (Army of the Immaculate One), to work for  the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. Their aim was to bring as many souls as possible to Jesus by becoming saints with Mary's help. The conditions of this apostolate were: to battle for souls under the banner of the Immaculate; to wear the miraculous medal; and to recite every day a special prayer imploring her protection.

Maximilian was studying in Rome from 1912-1919, where he contracted tuberculosis. On April 28, 1918, he was ordained to the priesthood. He returned to the newly independent Poland in July 1919, teaching at the Kraków Seminary, until his illness forced him to take a leave of absence from his teaching duties. The doctors predicted that he had only a few months left. He subsequently only lived with a quarter of a lung, but this did not diminish his zeal for spreading the Militia of the Immaculate. So in January 1922, he founded the monthly Knight of the Immaculate, a monthly periodical and devotional publication, which would one day reach a print run of almost a million copies. He also operated a religious publishing press and founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanow, which became a major religious publishing center. On December 8, 1927, he founded the monastery of Niepokalanov: the City of the Immaculate.

On January 30, 1930, he made a pilgrimage to Lourdes, then to the chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Paris. On February 1, he was in Lisieux, where he entrusted the new Franciscan monastery he was going to found in Japan on the outskirts of Nagasaki, to Saint Therese of Lisieux, the patron saint of missions. He stayed in Japan for two years, then traveled to Malabar, India, to found another monastery.

In 1935, Fr. Maximilian returned to Poland. His apostolate was inventive: he used fervent, persuasive words; the distribution of thousands of miraculous medals; the press, theatre, and radio. He constantly repeated that the work was not a goal in itself, but a means of bringing Jesus and Mary into every home. His work was so successful that the monastery housed more than 700 religious. He told his brothers that good example, prayer and suffering accepted out of love were the best of all actions.

Franciscan friars who lived with him spoke of Father Kolbe as the "mystic of the Immaculate", always joyful and available. "Father Kolbe often prayed short prayers before the Blessed Sacrament, to entrust the intentions of our readers and donors. The intensity of his meditation impressed us. A man among men, he was cheerful, liked to tell jokes and make the sick in the infirmary laugh to relax them" (quoted in Lourdes magazine, July 2001).

Then came the Second World War. On September 19, 1939, the Nazis imprisoned for the first time the man who headed the largest Catholic publications organization in Poland. Miraculously freed, he returned to his beloved City, which was almost destroyed. The Gestapo closed the City and re-arrested Father Kolbe on February 17, 1941. Severely beaten because he refused to deny Christ, he was sent to Auschwitz. There he was given the number 16670. He continued his mission by hearing confessions and celebrating mass clandestinely. The red crown, which the Virgin had presented to him in his youth, was approaching. He put into practice his formula for holiness, defined as  w = W, which means aligning our will to God's Will: "If I want what God wants, I will be a saint."

The opportunity came in July 1941. Following an escape in the concentration camp, the camp commander picked ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. One of them was Franciszek Gajowniczek, a married man and father, who cried out in anguish at the prospect of having to leave his family behind. Maximilian freely offered himself for martyrdom, saying: "I am a Polish Catholic priest, I am old, I want to take his place because he has a wife and children." In this way, he fulfilled the words of Jesus, who said: "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13).

The condemned men entered the bunker of death naked. During the long agony, which lasted three weeks, the Franciscan sustained the hope of his comrades. Astonished, the soldiers heard daily prayers and songs. The only survivor, he died as a man of prayer, holding out his arm to the executioner for a lethal injection. An employee of the bunker would testify that his face was radiant and that his body radiated light. This is how Mary welcomed her child on August 14, 1941.

Pope Paul VI beatified Father Kolbe in 1971, and Pope John Paul II canonized him on October 10, 1982,  and declaring him as a confessor and a martyr of charity. Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man Kolbe saved at Auschwitz, survived the Holocaust and was present as a guest at both the beatification and the canonization ceremonies.

Beyond reasons to believe:

John Paul II proclaimed Maximilian Kolbe to be a model for the New Evangelization in today's world. In the homily for his canonization, the pope spoke of the greatness of his death, offered out of love: "It was the victory won over the whole system of contempt and hatred towards man and towards what is divine in man, a victory similar to that won by Our Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary."

Going further:

St. Maximilian Kolbe: Knight of the Immaculata by Jeremiah J. Smith, TAN Books (January 1, 1951)

More information:

• The life of St. Maximilian Kolbe: Apostle of Mass Communications  by William LaMay, Independently published (March 17, 2019)

• The Saints of Auschwitz: The Life Stories of St. Maximilian Kolbe and Teresa Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein) by Fr. Benedict Alfred,  Independently published (January 28, 2024)

• Maximilian Kolbe: Saint of Auschwitz, by Elaine Murray Stone, Paulist Press; First Edition (January 1, 1997)