St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (1894-1941)
“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 L'viv (then Poland [actually then the Austro-Hungarian Empire; see below], now Ukraine), near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships.
Ordained at 24, he 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 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.
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 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.
A prisoner had escaped. The Nazi 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.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The Nazi commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming — instead the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.
Source: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1107
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Dominique Probst is the composer of the "Maximilian Kolbe" opera, with a libretto by Eugène Ionesco, which was highly successful at Rimini in Italy (1988), in France at the cathedral of Arras (1989), as well as in Poland, Austria, and Sicily (1990 and 1991).
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Galicia is a historical region currently split between Poland and Ukraine. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, was the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of Austria from 1772 until 1918, with Lemberg (Lwów, L'viv) as its capital city. It was created from the territories taken from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the partitions of Poland and lasted until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of the First World War.
Source: Wikipedia
Maximilian Mary Kolbe
Photo credit: www.fisheaters.com. With thanks.
He entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in L'viv (then Poland [actually then the Austro-Hungarian Empire; see below], now Ukraine), near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships.
Ordained at 24, he 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 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.
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 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.
A prisoner had escaped. The Nazi 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.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The Nazi commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming — instead the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.
Source: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/SaintOfDay/default.asp?id=1107
*
Dominique Probst is the composer of the "Maximilian Kolbe" opera, with a libretto by Eugène Ionesco, which was highly successful at Rimini in Italy (1988), in France at the cathedral of Arras (1989), as well as in Poland, Austria, and Sicily (1990 and 1991).
*
Galicia is a historical region currently split between Poland and Ukraine. The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, or simply Galicia, was the largest, most populous, and northernmost province of Austria from 1772 until 1918, with Lemberg (Lwów, L'viv) as its capital city. It was created from the territories taken from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the partitions of Poland and lasted until the dissolution of Austria-Hungary at the end of the First World War.
Source: Wikipedia
Maximilian Mary Kolbe
Photo credit: www.fisheaters.com. With thanks.
posted by Garth Trinkl at 8:06 AM
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