Saints under the dome: St. Maximillian kolbe
August 14th is the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, one of the Saints to be featured under the dome of St. Ann’s. Canonized as the “patron saint of the new century” by Pope John Paul II, Kolbe is known for his fierce devotion to the Blessed Mother and heroic martyrdom at the Aushcwitz concentration camp.
Raymund Kolbe was born on January 8th, 1894 in the Kingdom of Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, to a German father and Polish mother. As a child, Kolbe had a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed the course of his life. The Blessed Mother appeared to him holding a red and a white crown. The red meant Kolbe would become a martyr, while the white symbolized perseverance in purity. Our Lady asked the young Raymund which one he chose. He picked both.
When he was 13, he and his older brother illegally crossed the Austria-Hungary border to join the Conventual Franciscan seminary in Lwow. There, he received his religious name, Maxmilian. Kolbe felt a strong pull to devotion to Our Lady and often turned to her in prayer. After a brief break from the order to attempt to fight for the Polish army, Maxmilian rejoined the Franciscans and journeyed to Rome as a student. While there, Maximilian was disturbed at the sight of Freemasons flying their flags outside the Vatican and spreading propaganda pamphlets about the Pope. This prompted him to ponder setting up an association to combat Freemasonry and other opponents of the Catholic Church. After consulting his spiritual director, Maxmilian founded the Militia Immaculatae in 1917. The first meeting of the Militia took place on October 16, 1917 - just three days after Our Lady’s final apparition in Fatima, Portugal, and the Miracle of the Sun.
The Militia, which still exists today, is a worldwide evangelization movement that promotes total consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a means of conversion of all sinners, personal sanctity, and reparation of sin. Kolbe helped Immaculata Friars publish pamphlets, books, and a daily newspaper. He also publicly broadcast his views on religion over the radio. In 1930, Kolbe served as a missionary in Japan and founded a monastery in Nagasaki, which would be one of few buildings to survive the bombings at the end of WWII. Plagued with poor health after a bout of tuberculosis years prior, Kolbe returned to Poland in 1936. At the start of WWII, Kolbe was one of few friars who remained at the monastery, which had been converted to a hospital. He was arrested by the Nazis and released after three months, despite his refusal to sign the “German’s People List,” which would have awarded him rights similar to those of German citizens due to his Father’s heritage. Instead, upon being released, Maximilian began hiding refugees at the monastery and circulating publications, many of which were critical of the Nazi party. These actions led to Kolbe’s final arrest on February 17th, 1941, and he was transferred to Aushchwitz in May of that year.
Kolbe continued to perform his duties as a priest while in prison, celebrating Mass with smuggled bread and wine and hearing confessions even as he recovered from brutal beatings. He often encouraged his fellow prisoners to mercifully forgive their imprisoners. In July of 1941, after a prisoner escaped the camp, ten prisoners were ordered to die in retribution. When a man named Francis Gajowniczek was chosen as one of the ten, he cried out, “My wife! My children!” Upon hearing this, Maximilian offered to take Gajowniczek’s place, and Kolbe was led to the starvation chamber with the other nine men. For the next two weeks, Kolbe calmly knelt or stood while his fellow men starved to death around him. When the Nazi soldiers decided his time was up, they administered a lethal injection of carbolic acid.
Kolbe was martyred on August 14th, 1941, and his remains were cremated on August 15th - the feast of the Assumption. Pope John Paul II canonized him on October 10, 1982, and officially recognized Kolbe as a martyr. Francis Gajowniczek was present at his canonization and spent the rest of his life speaking of how Kolbe saved his life. Kolbe is the patron saint of journalists, media communications, the pro-life movement, recovering drug addicts, political prisoners, and families. One of his greatest contributions was to Marian Theology. Kolbe had a deep understanding of Mary as the perfect vessel of the Holy Spirit, going so far as to call her the “quasi-incarnation” of the Holy Spirit. As he pondered Our lady’s words at Lourdes, “I am the Immaculate Conception,” Kolbe came to understand that the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception, while Mary is the Created:
“What kind of union is this? It is above all interior; it is the union of her very being with the being of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells in her, lives in her, from the first instant of her existence, and he will do so always, throughout eternity… This uncreated Immaculate Conception conceives divine life immaculately in the soul of Mary, his Immaculate Conception. The virginal womb of her body, too, is reserved for him who conceives there in time—everything material comes about according to time—the divine life of the God-Man.”
Kolbe wrote that, as a result of this close union, “the Holy Spirit acts solely through the Immaculate; consequently she is the Mediatrix of all the graces of the Holy Spirit.” As we read his story and prepare to place him under the dome of St. Ann’s, we can ask for his intercession and develop a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and Blessed Virgin Mary - perhaps through his prayer of total consecration.
[ Sources: Militia of the Immaculata UDayton St. Maximilian Kolbe Church ]
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