The Catholic Defender: Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

Kolbe helped the Immaculata Friars to publish high pamphlets, books and a daily newspaper – Maly Dziennik. The monthly magazine grew to have a circulation of over 1 million and was influential amongst Polish Catholics. Kolbe even gained a radio licence and publicly broadcast his views on religion.

Known throughout his life as the “Knight of the Immaculata,” St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, OFM Conv., was born in Poland in 1894. When he was about ten years old, the Immaculate Virgin appeared to him and offered him two symbolic crowns: the white crown of chastity and the red crown of martyrdom. He chose them both.

Yet, his life of holiness was no accident; he did not wake up one morning a saint. Rather, his holiness was the result of constant spiritual effort that cultivated an intimate relationship with our Blessed Mother, with whom he was deeply in love, and a burning love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“I don’t know what’s going to become of you!” How many parents have said that? Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s reaction was, “I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.” After that he was not the same.

He entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív–then Poland, now Ukraine– near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though Maximilian later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships.

Maximilian believed strongly in the spiritual strength that one receives through the reception of Christ in the Eucharist. Often, he would bring the Blessed Sacrament to friars who were too sick to celebrate Mass with the community, offering them spiritual strength and fraternal charity.

Ordained at 24, Maximilian saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work, and suffering.

He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata, a religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later founded another one in Nagasaki, Japan. Both the Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary.

Franciszek Gajowniczek (15 November 1901 – 13 March 1995) was a Polish army sergeant whose life was saved at the Auschwitz concentration camp by Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to die in his place.

In 1939, the Nazi panzers overran Poland with deadly speed. Niepokalanow was severely bombed. Kolbe and his friars were arrested, then released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

In 1941, Fr. Kolbe was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, three months later in Auschwitz, after terrible beatings and humiliations.

A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.”

As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line.

“I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.”

“Who are you?”

“A priest.”

One night in Kolbe's childhood, Our Lady appeared to him in a dream holding a white crown and a red crown. He later related, “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.

Some very common symbols for him to be depicted along with are a rosary and two crowns, and perhaps an image of the Blessed Mother. The two crowns refer to the vision St. Maximilian Kolbe had, which led to his conversion in his early teenage years.

On October 17, 1971, Kolbe was beatified by Pope Paul VI, the first Nazi victim to be proclaimed blessed by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1982 Pope John Paul II canonized him, proclaiming also that he was to be venerated as a martyr.

He died on August 14, 1941, with an injection of carbolic acid. Pope John Paul II canonized him as a Saint and Martyr of Charity on October 10, 1982. St. Maximilian Kolbe is considered a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement, the chemically addicted and those with eating disorders.

Maximilian taught that saints are in some ways like the great men of the world, but are motivated supernaturally by faith in God and love for him. In this way, they are able not only to see beyond adversity, but to embrace the Cross in a spirit of sacrificial love.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose feast we celebrate today, exhibited this in a way that was truly heroic. Not only did he defend and promulgate the faith during the height of World War II, but he, in a final act of heroic love, also laid down his life for a man randomly selected to die in a starvation chamber at Auschwitz.

the Church honors St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan priest who volunteered to die in place of a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz, thus embodying the teaching of Jesus, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends” (John 15:13).

Grant, O Lord Jesus, that we, too, may give ourselves entirely without reserve to the love and service of our Heavenly Queen in order to better love and serve our fellowman in imitation of your humble servant, St. Maximilian Kolbe. Amen. Three Hail Mary's and a Glory Be.