Saint of the Day - Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe (August 14th)
Channel: House of Prayers for Everyone (HOPE)
Date: 13/08/2023

Raymund Kolbe was born on January 8th 1894 in Zduńska Wola, in the Kingdom of Poland, then still a part of the Russian Empire. He was the second son of an ethnic German weaver, Julius Kolbe, and a Polish midwife, Maria Dąbrowska . Shortly after Raymund’s birth, his family moved to Pabianice in Central Poland.

In 1906, when he was 12, he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. Raymund later described this incident:

“That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me 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. I said that I would accept them both.”

The following year, Raymund, along with his elder brother Francis, enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary in Lwow. In 1910, Raymund was allowed to enter the novitiate, where he chose a religious name Maximilian. He professed his first vows in 1911 and final vows in 1914, adopting the additional name of Maria.

He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the Pontifical Gregorian University and continued his studies at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure, where he earned a doctorate in theology.

Soon afterward, on October 16th 1917, Maximilian organized the Militia Immaculata (Army of the Immaculate One), to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church, specifically the Freemasons, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. So serious was Maximilian about his goal that he added to the Miraculous Medal prayer:

“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. And for all those who do not have recourse to thee; especially the Freemasons and all those recommended to thee.”

From 1919 to 1922, he taught at the Kraków Seminary. Around that time, he suffered from tuberculosis. In January of 1922, Fr. Maximilian founded the monthly periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej, a devotional publication. From 1922 to 1926, he operated a religious publishing press in Grodno. As his activities grew in scope, in 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery, which became a major religious publishing centre. 

In 1930, Fr. Maximilian moved to Japan where he successfully founded a Franciscan monastery, Mugenzai no Sono, on the outskirts of Nagasaki, in just a year. He also established a Japanese Catholic press by 1936, along with a similarly ambitious monastery.

In 1936, Fr. Maximilian was called back to attend the Provincial Chapter in Poland, were he was appointed the guardian of Niepokalanów. Two years later, he started a radio station called Radio Niepokalanów.

After the outbreak of World War II, Fr. Maximilian was one of the few friars who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital.
When Niepokalanów was occupied by the Germans, Fr. Maximilian was arrested; He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry. He was later released on December 8th.

Fr. Maximilian received permission to continue publishing religious works though in a significantly reduced scope. The monastery continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications.
However, on February 17th 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German and Fr. Maximilian along with four others were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On May 28th, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner number 16670.

At the beginning of August 1941, ten prisoners were sentenced to death by starvation as a punishment for another inmate's escape. Moved by one man's lamentation for his wife and children, Fr. Maximilian volunteered to die in his place.

After two weeks, on the night before the Church's feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the camp officials decided to hasten Fr. Maximilian’s death by injecting him with carbolic acid. His remains was cremated the following day, on the feast of the Assumption. 

On May 12, 1955, Fr. Maximilian was recognized by the Holy See as a Servant of God. He was declared venerable by Pope Paul VI on January 30, 1969, beatified as a Confessor of the Faith in 1971, and canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II on October 10, 1982.

------------------------- --------------------------
Images attributed to the following:
- By Jean-Christophe BENOIST - Own work, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons
- By Unknown author - santuarioeucaristico.blogspot.hu/2010/08/sao-maximiliano-kolbe-14-de-agosto.html, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- By Dnalor 01 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 at, Wikimedia Commons
- Lowdown, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
- Franciscans of Saint Bonaventure Province, franciscancommunity.org/st-maximilian-kolbe/ 
- St. Maximilian Kolbe
 The Saint and Martyr of the Immaculate saintmaximiliankolbe.com/biography/