Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Saint
Maximilian Kolbe was born in 1894 to a poor but pious family in
Zdunska Wola. His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers.
At age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a
vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life (he was known as a
mischievous child):
"I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me
holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to
accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in
purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept
them both." - Saint Maximilian
He entered the Franciscan junior seminary in 1907 and studied
philosophy at the Jesuit Gregorian College in Rome from 1912 to 1919, during
which time he was ordained. He was very much devoted to the truth of the
Immaculate Conception of Our Lady. This resulted in the foundation of the
movement "Militia Immaculata", members of which spread this truth about
the Holy Virgin to people. In January 1922 he began publication of the
magazine Knight of the Immaculate to fight religious apathy. At its peak
the Knight of the Immaculate had a press run of 750,000 copies a month. He
founded a new monastery and a whole town in Niepokalanow near Warsaw
(‘City of the Immaculate’), which was consecrated on 8 December 1927. In the
early 1930s, he worked in missions in Japan and India, where he
founded two Franciscan monasteries. During the war, back at Niepokalanow,
St. Maximilian and his brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds
of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work. For this work the
congregation was suppressed and Maximilian was arrested in 1941 and
sent to Auschwitz together with his brothers, where despite the inhumane
conditions, he continued his ministry by administering sacraments to fellow
prisoners. The Nazis tried to destroyed humanity, treating people like objects
or numbers. Maksimilian was branded as prisoner number 16670. In spite of
this, he was still generous and interested in his neighbours’ fate. He thought
that it was his duty to sustain the human dignity of his fellow prisoners. In
July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the
prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution
for each escaped prisoner. Franciszek Gajowniczek, a married man with young
children was chosen to die by starvation for the escape. Maximilian
volunteered to take his place, and died as he had always wished - in
service. Father Maximilian was canonised in 1982.
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