Kolbe had a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary and he became an active participant in the Militia Immaculata or Army of Mary. 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.
Kolbe was successful in using the latest technology to spread his message. As well as writing extensive essays and pieces for the newspaper, Kolbe composed the Immaculata Prayer — the consecration to the immaculately conceived Virgin Mary. In , Kolbe travelled to Japan, where he spent several years serving as a missionary.
He founded a monastery on the outskirts of Nagasaki the monastery survived the atomic blast, shielded by a mountain. Although the location on the side of the mountain was strange, its position helped it to survive the later Atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. He also entered into dialogue with local Buddhist priests and some of them became friends. However, increasingly ill, he returned to Poland in When Poland was overrun by the Nazi forces in , he was arrested under general suspicion on 13 September but was released after three months.
When first arrested he said:. They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it.
The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love.
And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves? Although Kolbe did not write this, it is believed this was a factor that led to his arreSaint. Shortly after this publication, on 17 February , he was arrested by the Gestapo for hiding Jewish people. After a brief internment in a notorious Polish prison, he was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and branded prisoner Kolbe was sent to the work camp.
Miscellaneous books, magazines, and pamphlets for people in all walks of life were freely circulated by the friars. She — seeing the profound love of a soul for her — would eventually reward such love by loving that soul in return; thus generating the fruit of these two loves i. He is, by grace, always a missionary. This was especially true of St.
Maximilian Kolbe. It is manifested in a similar, universal desire to win all souls to Jesus and the Immaculate. With the permission of his superiors, St. Maximilian, considering the need for further expansion, started a mission in Japan with four other friars in He wrought numerous conversions among the Japanese; most of them thanked him for his heroic and unconditional sacrifice to draw them to the true Faith.
But St. Maximilian recognized that this apostolic success could only be attributed to a pure and undivided love for the Immaculate. Where there is love and charity, there is God. After having initiated the undertaking and seeing it flourish in Japan, his major superiors appointed him as the superior of the Polish City of the Immaculate whose apostolic potentials had peaked at that moment in time.
Such preparation became the spiritual strength of the friars themselves. Shortly afterwards, the Nazis occupied Poland in September, Father Maximilian and many of the friars were arrested. Their incarceration lasted approximately two months.
The Nazis suppressed his printing and publishing apostolate. Without being disheartened, his zeal remained unabated. His solicitude for these war victims had no sectarian boundaries; he fostered in them the need to forgive their enemies, and to acknowledge that hatred is destructive and love alone is creative.
But there was no screaming—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. Kolbe was beatified in and canonized in His whole life had been a preparation.
His holiness was a limitless, passionate desire to convert the whole world to God. When the Nazis overran the country in , they eventually imprisoned Kolbe in the Auschwitz death camp, where in he offered to take the place of a man condemned to die in reprisal for an escaped prisoner. In the process he ministered to nine others dying with him from starvation. Pope Paul VI beatified Maximilian in In , St. Maximilian was a profound theologian as well as a heroic martyr.
Maximilian Mary Kolbe St.
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