Catholic Heroes . . . St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe

By DEB PIROCH

A newly consecrated saint this past weekend is St. Titus Brandsma, whom Pope Francis has named a patron saint of journalists. We can always use more intercessors! But the Pope neglected to mention his “brother” saint. St. Maximilian Kolbe has long been a known a patron saint of journalists. Both men were martyrs in Nazi concentration camps: Kolbe died a martyr in Auschwitz, while Brandsma died in Dachau. Both suffered death in the exact manner, by injection of carbolic acid.
However, read on to find out more about St. Maximilian, his life using the media in dedication to Our Lady and how he embraced martyrdom as a possible consequence of his life from a young age.
St. Maximilian was the second of four sons born to Julius and Maria Kolbe. His given name was Raymund and his father was a weaver and an ethnic German, while his mother was a Polish midwife. At this time, Poland was part of the Russian Empire. He and another brother would join the Conventional Franciscan Friars, illegally crossing the border to begin the junior novitiate in Lvov, in Ukraine. By 1912 he was sent to Rome, where he would earn doctorates in both philosophy and theology and be ordained.
While in Rome, as a student he witnessed Freemasons demonstrating vehemently in annual celebrations against Popes Pius X and Benedict XV, where they displayed flags with Lucifer standing shamefully atop the body of St. Michael the Archangel. His response was to found the Order of the Immaculate One, or the Militia Immaculata! This Marian movement became a hallmark of his spirituality in the fight against evil, in a life that witnessed parts of two world wars. Below is a list of dates linked to his life and journalism:
1918 — Ordained at age 24.
1922 — Founded monthly publication, Rycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculata).
1922-1926 — Operated religious printing press.
(Note: The order eventually had a daily paper Maly Dziennik reaching 230,000, plus a magazine with the latter reaching a million subscribers.)
1930 — While a missionary, he started publishing Knight of the Immaculata in Japanese, Seibo no Kishi. First run was 10,000 copies.
1938 — Started Radio Niepokalanow.
1939 — Continued printing anti-Nazi materials.
February 17, 1941 — Arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned.
May 28, 1941 — Arrived in Auschwitz.
August 1941 — Offered to take place of a condemned father and he therefore starved for two weeks, still alive.
August 14, 1941 — Injected with carbolic acid, died age 47.
August 15, 1941 — Cremated on the Feast of the Assumption.
His community, which Kolbe called the “City of the Immaculata,” started with 18 members. In only 12 years it grew to 650 friars, one of the largest in Europe. This also became a giant publishing center for Catholicism. When war came Niepokalanow, as it was known, would also feed and shelter 3,000 from the Nazis, many of them Jews. Had war not intervened, St. Maximilian planned for an “Immaculata” in every nation using all forms of media, from newspapers and radio to even motion pictures.
This article can only touch on the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. But we should mention he also served as a missionary in Asia from 1930-1936, going to China, Japan, and India. Interestingly enough, he founded a monastery in Nagasaki, and he was told that he built on the “wrong” side of the mountain according to the Shinto religion. It rather miraculously survived the atomic bomb blast.
Why the Immaculata? At the age of ten or twelve, the future saint had a vision. Before him was Mary, who proffered two crowns, one white for purity, one red for martyrdom. She asked if he was willing to accept either one. St. Maximilian answered that he would accept both.
Now we understand better why as a student he incorporated Mary into his fight against freemasonry. We understand his love for being a “Knight of the Immaculata.” We even understand why he chose the religious name Maximilian Maria — he understood that Mary was truly the Mediatrix or way for us to reach Heaven. As Mary said at the Marriage at Cana, “Do as He tells you.” That is what we are all called to do and it is what our saint put into practice throughout his life of service to God.
As a student in his late teens, he coughed blood. This meant only one thing: tuberculosis. At the time there were no antibiotics. People rested and tried to care for themselves best they could, but there was no cure. It was seen as a “fatal” disease, but it did not kill him. However, it did hinder him in his studies, in his teaching when he first became a priest and was assigned to classes, and at times throughout his life.
Two years after he began his studies, his father was taken prisoner by the Russians for fighting for a free Poland and executed. This caused him great pain.
At one point, due to his ethnic German heritage, he could have signed papers that would have granted him greater privileges, but he refused. After the 1939 anti-Nazi printings by his monastery, he was arrested and imprisoned with other religious. Afterward, he was shipped to Auschwitz.
It would be a mistake to single out simply his death as the only mark of his saintliness. Holiness demands that one should die to one’s self — many times a day. Having learned this lesson, he was tested but served as a true witness in the camp to those who needed him. They would crawl to him, asking his help, ask for Confession in the late hours at night, or he would crawl back to them, saying, “I am a priest, can I help you?”
When in the camp hospital with pneumonia at one point, he blessed every dead person he saw and gave each one conditional absolution. He prayed, encouraged, heard Confessions. Even outside the infirmary he tried to share miserable rations that would not support a single person and, in all things, put others first.
Finally, love for one’s neighbor: Loving one’s neighbor not because he is “nice,” worthwhile, wealthy, influential, or just because he is grateful. For such would be very petty reasons, unworthy of a male or female Knight of the Immaculata. Genuine love rises above the creature and plunges into God. In Him, for Him, and through Him it loves everyone, be they good or bad, friends or foes. It offers a helping hand, full of love to everyone; it prays for all, suffers for all, wishes good to all, wishes happiness to all, because that is God’s Will! — St. Maximilian Kolbe
At the camp he was singled out for punishment, of course, being a priest. After some prisoners escaped the camp and others were to be killed in retribution, one being a father with a wife and children, we know that Fr. Maximilian stepped up and asked the guard to let him take his place. He ministered to the other nine in the hole, even as he died with them. They sang Marian hymns, prayed, he consoled them. When they were checked on, Fr. Maximilian was generally seen standing or kneeling with no vindictiveness. After two weeks the others had all starved to death, but he was still alive. He did not die fast enough. The Nazis went to inject him with carbolic acid. He calmly raised his arm and acquiesced. After dying, he was cremated the next day, on the Feast of the Assumption, and no doubt our Lady was smiling.
“I want to work for that ideal always, to suffer and possibly give up my own life in sacrifice. What instead is against that ideal is not mine, but comes from outside and therefore, according to my ability, I have fought it, I am fighting it and will fight it forever.” — St. Maximilian Kolbe