On 14 August, the Church celebrates St. Maximilian Kolbe, a martyr who teaches us to live the heroic life!
Newsroom (15/08/2021 16:10, Gaudium Press) Much is spoken and written about the tragic death of St. Maximilian Kolbe in the Auschwitz death camp. Less known, however, is his life filled with brilliant and daring apostolic undertakings – the fruit of a spirit of magnificent vision illuminated by a deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
The dawn of a great vocation
Poland, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, like all of Europe and America, was filled with material prosperity. The society of the time reveled in the euphoria and splendour of the Belle Époque, in a time of plenty and comfort, more concerned with the enjoyment of life than with faith. Secularism dominated minds and customs.
In this historical context, Raimundo Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894, in the Polish city of Zduńska Wola, receiving the baptismal waters on the same day. His parents, Julius Kolbe and Maria Dabrowska, were true Christians, deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary. Of their five children, two died in infancy and the other three embraced the religious life.
A vision that changed his life
As a lively and mischievous child, Raimundo received a scolding from his mother one day that marked his life:
“If at ten you are such a bad boy, quarrelsome and rude, what will you be like later on?”
These words deeply penetrated the little boy’s soul, and he became distressed and thoughtful by them. Desiring to change his life, he turned to Our Lady. Kneeling at the foot of a beautiful statue of Her in the parish church, he asked her:
“What will happen to me?”
Imagine his astonishment when the Mother of God appeared to him, holding in Her hands two crowns, one white and the other red. Smiling maternally, she asked him which one he should choose. The white one meant that he would persevere in chastity, and the red one meant that he would be a martyr. Being a great soul, he chose both.
A religious vocation
Through the grace of the Immaculate Conception, his vocation to the religious life was born. He decided to become a Capuchin Franciscan, and at the age of 14 began his studies in Łódź, in the Minor Seminary of the Conventual Friars, together with his brother Francis. At 16 years, he was admitted to the novitiate, choosing the name Maximilian in honour of the great African martyr. Perhaps he was already thinking of his future?
The following year, he pronounced his simple vows. Because of his outstanding intelligence, his superiors decided to send him to the Eternal City to continue his studies at the Franciscan Seraphic International College and then to study philosophy at the famous Gregorian University.
Hearing of the special difficulties there were in maintaining purity in Rome at that time, the young friar requested not to be sent there. But in the name of holy obedience he left for the Capital of Christendom where, in addition to completing his studies, he made his solemn profession on 1 November 1914 –including the Name of Mary, the Immaculate Virgin, to his religious name.
“Zeal for your house will consume me”.
In Rome, Maximilian was shocked by the insolence with which the enemies of the Church attacked Her, without the proportionate indignant reaction of Catholics. He resolved, then, to enter the struggle even before receiving priestly ordination. Gathering around him six fellow disciples, he founded in 1917 the apostolic association of the Militia of Mary Immaculate, whose statutes declared its objectives: the conversion of sinners – including the enemies of the Church – and the sanctification of all its members, under the protection of Mary Immaculate. He accepted into it only fearless young men truly willing to accompany him in this enterprise, under the title of ‘Knights of the Avant-garde’.
His thirst for souls was recorded in the minutes of his priestly ordination on 28 April 1918.
Returning to Poland in 1919, he founded the monthly newspaper of his association – ‘Knights of the Immaculate‘ – putting the technical printing progress of his time at the service of the Faith.
By 1939, the paper already had an astounding circulation of one million copies, and seventeen other smaller periodicals and a radio station had been added. The ‘City of Mary’, which he had recently founded, then had 762 inhabitants, including 13 priests, 18 novices, 527 lay brothers, 122 minor seminarians, and 82 candidates for the priesthood. There were also doctors, dentists, farmers, mechanics, tailors, builders, printers, gardeners, cooks, and a fire brigade.
The Second World War
When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the City of Mary was very exposed to risks, as it was situated near the road from Potsdam to Warsaw, a probable route of invasion by the Nazi troops. For this reason, the Mayor of Warsaw ordered its prompt evacuation. Father Maximilian found safe places for all the brothers, but he remained there with fifty of his closest collaborators.
In September, the invading troops took them as prisoners to Amtitz. But on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 8 December, they were all released and returned to their Niepokalanów, the City of Mary, transforming it into a refuge and hospital for the war wounded, for both refugees and Jews.
They also resumed their apostolic work, and with great courage he wrote in the last issue of Knight of the Immaculate the following words of admirable intellectual honesty and integrity of conviction: “No one in the world can change the truth. What we can do is seek it and serve it when we have found it. The real conflict today is an internal conflict. Beyond the armies of occupation and the hecatombes of the death camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depths of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. What good are victories on the battlefields if we are defeated in the depths of our souls?“[1]
In February of 1941, the Gestapo burst into the City of Mary and took Father Kolbe and four other friars, the most elderly, into custody. In the Pawiak prison in Warsaw he was subjected to insults and trials, and was later transferred to the extermination camp of Auschwitz.
In the “camp” of his holocaust
For the holy martyr the stations of his Via-Crucis (Way of the Cross) had begun. He spent the first night in a room with 320 other prisoners. The next morning, they were all stripped naked, washed with jets of cold water and each given a jacket with a number. He was #16,670.
When the German officer saw St. Maximilian’s religious habit, he became irritated. Tearing the Crucifix violently from his neck, he shouted at him:
“And do you believe this?”
At the unflinching affirmative answer, he gave the Saint a hard slap!
Three times he repeated the question and three times the holy religious man confessed his faith, receiving the same maniacal outrage each time. Three times he was slapped across the face.
On entering the concentration camp, the guards thoroughly searched all the prisoners and took away all their personal effects. However, the soldier who searched Father Kolbe gave him back his Rosary, saying:
“Take your Rosary. And go inside.”
It was a smile from Our Lady, as though telling him that She would be with him at every moment.
Martyrdom in the bunker of death
At the end of July 1941, he was transferred to Block 14, whose prisoners were doing agricultural work. One prisoner had managed to escape, and as a punishment and warning, ten others were chosen by lot and condemned to the “death bunker”: an underground cell where they were thrown naked, and remained without drink or food, awaiting death.
Faced with the despair of those unfortunate people, Saint Maximilian offered to take the place of one of them, the father of a family, and his offering was accepted because he was a priest.
Once the bunker was closed, contact with the outside world was forever closed for them. In those terrible hours with no other expectation than death, it was up to each one to put his conscience in order. One can imagine the fear of death, of the Judgement, of suffering, the temptation to despair… In such a situation, what a privilege to have a holy priest as a companion! Thanks to him, the bunker of death was converted into a chapel of prayer and singing… with weaker voices every day. Three weeks later, only four were left alive. Deciding that the situation had dragged on for too long, the authorities decided to give this suffering lot a lethal injection of muriatic acid.
Father Kolbe was the last to die in that dreadful underground. He readily stretched out his arm for the injection, and a few moments later, a camp official found him dead ‘with his eyes open and his head bowed. His face, serene and beautiful, was radiant.'[2]
He had fulfilled his last mission: he had saved himself and others. It was 14 August 1941, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Saint Maximilian, pray for us!
St. Maximilian’s exemplary life, without a shadow of a doubt, moved Heaven immensely by these his acts of generosity and self-denial. Does he not also wish from us a response to this example of life that he gave? In this world which, more and more, subjects the Church to tortures equal to those of a concentration camp?
May St. Maximilian intercede for us and give us courage and fearlessness before the enemies of the Church!
Sr. Juliane Vasconcelos Almeida Campos
Article extracted, with adaptations, from the Arautos Magazine n. 92, August 2009.
[1] MLODOZENIEC, OFM Conv. I knew Blessed Maximilian Mary Kolbe. Mimeographed copy in the Immaculate Garden, St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Mission. Cidade Ocidental, Goiás, 1980.
[LLABRÉS Y MARTORELL, Pere Joan. San Maximiliano María (Raimundo) Kolbe. Año Cristiano. Madrid: BAC, 2005, vol. 8, p. 459.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
