Maximilian Maria Kolbe (1894-1941)

presbyter, martyr, OFM Conv.

Maximilian Maria Kolbe was born in Zdunska-Wola (Lodz) in central Poland, on January 8, 1894, and was baptized on the same day with the name of Raymond. The family then moved to Pabianice where Raimondo attended primary schools, felt a mysterious invitation from the Blessed Virgin Mary to generously love Jesus and felt the first signs of a religious and priestly vocation. In 1907 Raymond was welcomed into the Seminary of the Friars Minor Conventual in Leopoli, where he attended secondary studies and more clearly understood that to correspond to the divine vocation he had to consecrate himself to God in the Franciscan Order. On 4 September 1910 he began the novitiate with the name of Fra Massimiliano, and on 5 September 1911 he made his simple profession. To continue his religious and priestly formation he was transferred to Rome, where he lived from 1912 to 1919, at the "International Seraphic College" of the Order. Here fra Maximilian continued to assimilate those religious virtues which already revealed him a worthy and exemplary son of St. Francis, and prepared him to become an authentic priest of Christ. He made his solemn profession on 1 November 1914 with the name of Massimiliano Maria. He obtained a degree in philosophy in 1915, and a degree in theology in 1919. Ordained a priest on April 28, 1918, he celebrated the First Mass the following day in the Church of S. Andrea delle Fratte, at the altar commemorating the Apparition of the Immaculate Virgin to Alfonso Ratisbonne.

A solid and sure spiritual formation had opened the spirit of Fra Maximilian to an acute penetration and profound contemplation of the mystery of Christ. Like the Franciscan theologians, he loves to contemplate in God's saving plan the Will of the Father who creates through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. it sanctifies and saves a world in which the Incarnate and Redeemer Word constitutes the final point of the love of God who communicates himself and the point of convergence of the love of creatures who refer to God; and in the same plan of God he loves to contemplate the presence of Mary Immaculate who is at the apex of participation and collaboration with respect to the Redemptive Incarnation and the sanctifying action of the Spirit.

He also felt strongly and responsibly inserted in the history and life of the Church, as in that of his Franciscan Order; and he burned with the desire to work for the construction and defense of the Kingdom of God, under the patronage of Mary Immaculate, and to commit the confreres to a renewed filial and chivalrous service to the Mother of God.

These sentiments of faith and resolutions of zeal, which Maximilian summarizes in the motto: "Renew everything in Christ through the Immaculate Conception", are at the basis of the institution of the "Militia of Mary Immaculate" (MI), to which the October 16, 1917; as well as constituting the leaven that will animate the whole spiritual and apostolic life of Fr. Maximilian, up to his martyrdom of charity.

In 1919 Fr.Maximilian was back in Poland where, despite the difficulties of a serious illness that forced him to stay in the Zakopane sanatorium for a long time, he devoted himself with ardor to the exercise of the priestly ministry and to the organization of the MI In 1919 in Krakow he obtained the consent of the Archbishop to print the "Registration Report" to the MI and can recruit the first soldiers of the Immaculate Conception from among the faithful.

In 1922 he began the publication of "Rycerz Niepokalanej" (The Knight of the Immaculate Conception), the official magazine of the MI; while in Rome the Cardinal Vicar canonically approve the MI as a "Pious Union". Subsequently, the MI will find ever more numerous adhesions among priests, religious and faithful of many nations, attracted by the program of the Marian Movement and by the founder's reputation for holiness.

Meanwhile, in Poland, Fr. Maximilian obtained the possibility of setting up an autonomous publishing center in the Convent of Grodno which allowed him to publish "Il Cavaliere" with more profitable editing and diffusion to "bring the Immaculate Conception into homes, so that souls approaching Mary receive the grace of conversion and holiness ". It is an experience of spiritual and apostolic life that lasts five years and prepares the planning of another enterprise. In 1927, Fr Kolbe began the construction of a convent-city near Warsaw, which he called "NIEPOKALANÓW" (City of the Immaculate Conception). From the very beginning Niepokalanów assumed the appearance of an authentic "Franciscan fraternity" due to the primary importance given to prayer, to the witness of evangelical life and the alacrity of apostolic work. The friars, trained and guided by Fr. Massimiliano live in conformity with the Rule of St. Francis in the spirit of consecration to the Immaculate Conception, and they all collaborate in publishing and in the use of other means of social communication for the increase of the Kingdom of Christ and the spread of devotion to the Blessed Virgin. So Niepokalanów soon became an important and fruitful vocation center that welcomes the ever increasing number of aspirants to Franciscan life in its seminaries, and an editorial center that publishes in an increasing circulation: "Il Cavaliere", other magazines for young people and other works by dissemination and Christian formation.

From Niepokalanów, as already from Rome, Fr. Kolbe's gaze sweeps over the world driven by love for Christ and Mary. "For the Immaculate to the heart of Jesus, here is our watchword ... and since the consecration of Niepokalanów is unconditional, so it does not exclude the missionary ideal ... We do not wish to consecrate only ourselves to the Immaculate Conception. , but we want all the souls of the world to consecrate themselves to her ".

In 1930 Fr. Kolbe, a missionary of Christ and Mary, left for the Far East. In April he landed in Japan and reached Nagasaki, where, received kindly by the Bishop, an Armenian gift one month was able to publish "The Knight of the Immaculate" in Japanese. A new Convent-city was then built on the vengeance of Mount Hicosan on the outskirts of Nagasaki which took the name of "Mugenzai no Sono" (Garden of the Immaculate Conception), and in which Fr. Kolbe organized and formed the new Franciscan missionary community. on the vat of that of Niepokalanów. The results soon proved very comforting. Conversions and baptisms multiplied, and religious and priestly vocations matured among the baptized young people, so that Mugenzai no Sono also became a fruitful vocational center and seat of a novitiate and a philosophical-theological seminary. The publishing activity came to publish "Il Cavaliere", with a circulation of 50,000 copies and in an improved edition that the Bishop of Nagasaki recognized as corresponding "to the mentality of the Japanese to the point of arousing enthusiasm and favorable consensus, and up to the point of sowing in the pagan hearts, admiration first, and then love for the Immaculate Conception, and to call them and lead them to true faith ". Fr Kolbe, an authentic apostle of Mary, would have liked to found other "Cities of the Immaculate" in various other parts of the world; but in 1936 he had to return to Poland to resume the leadership of Niepokalanów, and to be, according to God's plans, a witness to the love of Christ and Mary before the world in the terrible impending hour.

In the years 1936-39 Niepokalanów reached the maximum development of his vocational and publishing activity. Fr. Kolbe, rich in the new experiences acquired in Japan, dedicates himself not only to imparting an intense spiritual formation to the numerous vocations that continually flow in, but also to taking care of the efficient organization of the press apostolate. About 800 friars, consecrated to the Immaculate Conception, are busy writing, printing and distributing books, brochures and periodicals including: "Il Cavaliere", with a circulation of 750,000 and sometimes 1,000,000 copies, and the "Piccolo Giornale ", which reaches 130,000 copies on weekdays and 250,000 copies on holidays. In the meantime, Fr. Massimiliano has the opportunity to dedicate himself also to completing the organization of the MI now widespread in the world; the twentieth anniversary of its foundation falls in 1937 and Fr Kolbe commemorates it in Rome, where in February he lays the foundations for the creation of a "MI General Management". In September 1939 the tragic series of blood tests began which Fr. Kolbe had somehow glimpsed. An insane anti-human and anti-Christian ideology pushes brutal forces to invade Poland and perpetrate unprecedented massacres and oppression; and the persecution also strikes Niepokalanów where only a small number of friars remain. Massimiliano faces the situation with heroic firmness and charity. He welcomes refugees, wounded, weak, hungry, discouraged, Christians and Jews into the convent, to whom he offers every spiritual and material comfort. On September 19, the Nazi police deported the small group of friars from Niepokalanów to the Amtitz concentration camp in Germany, where Fr. Maximilian encouraged the brothers to transform the prison into a witness mission. They were all able to return free to Niepokalanów in December, and resume a certain pace of activity despite the devastation suffered by the various departments.

The new administrative authority imposed by Nazism knows very well the Christian spiritual power that Niepokalanów represents and exercises in Poland against all forms of injustice and error; and he also knows the firm intentions that animate the friars knights of Mary Immaculate, because he heard directly from Fr Kolbe this declaration: "We are ready to give our lives for our ideals". However, the Gestapo will resort to deception to indict Fr. Massimiliano. Arrested on February 17, 1941 Fr. Maximilian was locked up in the Pawiak prison where he suffered the first tortures by the Nazi guards; and on May 28 he was transferred to the infamous Oswiipcim concentration camp. The presence of Fr. Kolbe in the various blocks of the death camp was that of the Catholic priest witness to the faith, ready to give his life for others, that of the Franciscan religious, evangelical witness of charity and messenger of peace and good for the brothers, that of the knight of Mary Immaculate who entrusts all men to the love of the divine Mother. Involved in the same sufferings inflicted on so many innocent victims, he prays and causes people to pray, endures and forgives, enlightens and strengthens in faith, absolves sinners and instills hope.

He was ready for the supreme gift to which he had aspired since his youth by giving his charity this evangelical dimension: "Da te ipsum aliis = Amor"; he did it with extreme enthusiasm of love when he freely offered to take the place of a prisoner brother condemned, together with nine others in unjust reprisal, to starve. In the bunker of death, Fr. Maximilian made the song of the redeemed life that never dies resound with prayer, the song of love which is the only creative force, the song of the victory promised to faith in Christ.

On 14 August 1941, the eve of the feast of the Assumption of the Most Holy Mary, the inhuman and anti-Christian ferocity crushed his earthly existence with an injection of carbolic acid. The Immaculate Virgin, who had offered him the crown of holiness in his life, awaited him in heaven to offer him that of glory.

The fame of the holy life and the heroic death of Fr. Maximilian Maria Kolbe spread throughout the world, admired and exalted everywhere. After the canonical trials and examinations on the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Maximilian Mary and on the miracles attributed to his intercession, the Holy Father Paul VI proclaimed him Blessed on October 17, 1971.

On 10 October 1982 the Holy Father John Paul II proclaimed him a saint and a martyr.

Source: http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19821010_massimiliano_kolbe_it.html