St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe is universally known as the "Martyr of Auschwitz" because he volunteered to die as a substitute for one of the prisoners in the Nazi extermination camp. However, his whole life is worthy of consideration, since St. Maximilian reached the supreme moment of martyrdom as a consequence of having lived all the Christian virtues in a heroic way.
St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, whose given name was Raymond, was born on January 8, 1894, in Zdunska Wola, province of Lodz (Poland), where he spent the years of his childhood. In 1907, at the age of thirteen, he entered the Seminary of the Franciscan Friars Minor Conventual in Leopolis. In 1912 he was sent to study philosophy and theology in Rome. On November 1, 1914 he made his solemn profession, adopting the religious name of Maximilian Mary. On April 28, 1918 he was ordained a priest, and on July 22, 1919 he finished his theological studies. The following day he returned to Poland. During his stay in Rome, on October 16, 1917, he founded a Marian association called "Militia of the Immaculate", which was approved by the Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome on January 2, 1922 as the "Pious Union of the Militia of Mary Immaculate".
On his return to Poland, he founded a Marian magazine in Krakow, called "The Knight of the Immaculate", and in September 1922 he moved the editorial staff to Grodno. In September 1922 he moved the editorial office of the magazine to Grodno. In October 1927 he moved it to Teresin, near Warsaw, and established a convent-editor's office in a large property, which he called Niepokalanówwhich in Polish means "Property of the Immaculate". This place came to consist of a printing press, a railway line, a small airfield and a post office. An important editorial work for the diffusion of the Catholic doctrine was carried out there.
Towards the end of 1929, he decided to go as a missionary to Japan, arriving with his companions in Nagasaki on April 24, 1930. There they immediately set to work at a good pace, so that already in the month of May they published the first issue of the "Knight of the Immaculate" in Japanese, with a print run of 10,000 copies. In 1932 he founded the Mugenzai no Sonowhich in Japanese means "The Garden of the Immaculate". Due to a worsening of his health condition, in 1935 he had to return to Poland, arriving in Niepokalanów as a superior. During World War II, on February 17, 1941, the Gestapo arrested him for being a Catholic priest and imprisoned him in Warsaw. On May 28, 1941, he was taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where he distinguished himself by his charity in caring for his fellow prisoners.
He often spent his nights praying or confessing. In the last days of July, in retaliation for the escape of a prisoner, ten prisoners were condemned to death by starvation. Then St. Maximilian Mary offered to replace one of them, Francis Gajowniczeck, a non-commissioned officer in the Polish army, married and father of a family. His request was accepted because when he was asked to identify himself, he presented himself as a Catholic priest. He was locked up with the other nine condemned prisoners in a subway bunker, which from a place of despair became a chapel from which hymns in honor of the Virgin and numerous rosaries led by the saint were sung. At the end of almost two weeks, after having confessed and assisted his nine companions to death, only he remained alive. He was killed with a poisonous injection on August 14, 1941, the eve of the Assumption. The next day his corpse was cremated in one of the crematoria ovens at Auschwitz, and his ashes were scattered on the floor of the extermination camp.
St. Paul VI proclaimed him blessed on October 17, 1971 and St. John Paul II canonized him on October 10, 1982, declaring him a martyr of charity.
When he was Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow, and later as Roman Pontiff, Karol Wojtyla gave several speeches on St. Maximilian Mary, in which he outlined his spiritual figure, presenting him as "one of the greatest contemplatives of our time; he who deepened the mystery of the Immaculate Conception; apostle of the current means of communication; living incarnation of the great precept of charity, Knight in love with Mary Immaculate; the Francis of the 20th century".
His mariological doctrine
St. Maximilian Kolbe is certainly a notable figure in the field of Mariology, although his incessant apostolic activity did not allow him to systematically organize his Marian theology. He wished to write a theological treatise on the Blessed Virgin, and in August 1940 he set about dictating some Notes to another Franciscan. In such Notes tried to give shape to some principles of his Marian doctrine, especially on the truths of the Immaculate Conception, the universal Mediation of Mary, and her divine and spiritual Maternity. These NotesThe book, completed with thoughts contained in other writings, allows us to reconstruct his Mariological doctrine.
For reasons of space, I will dwell here only on his teachings on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which constitutes the central axis of the saint's entire Mariology. He teaches that the Immaculate Conception was foreseen by God from all eternity, together with the Incarnate Word. She is the most perfect possible likeness of the divine Being in a human creature. St. Maximilian Mary explains that when the Blessed Virgin said at Lourdes: "I am the Immaculate Conception," she clearly affirmed that not only had she been conceived without original sin, but also that she was the Immaculate Conception herself, establishing between the two ways of describing her the same difference that exists between a white object and its whiteness, between a perfect thing and its perfection.
Therefore he concludes: "Therefore she is Immaculacy itself. God said to Moses: I am the one who is (Ex 3:14): I am existence itself, therefore without beginning; the Immaculate One, on the other hand, says of herself: I am Concepciónbut unlike all other human persons, Immaculate Conception". In other words, as he explains elsewhere, the name and the privilege of the Immaculate Conception belong in a certain way to the very essence of the Virgin Mary. Confirming this intuition of the saint, St. John Paul II said in a homily: "Immaculate Conception is the name that reveals precisely who Mary is: it does not merely affirm a quality, but delineates exactly her Person: Mary is radically holy in the totality of her existence, from the very beginning of her existence".
Moreover, since she presented herself at Lourdes as the Immaculate Conception, St. Maximilian Mary argues that this prerogative is very dear to Our Lady, since it indicates the first grace that God bestowed on her, right from the first moment of her existence. The content and reality of this name were then realized throughout her life, since she was always "the sinless one". She was full of grace (cf. Lk 1:28) and God was always with her, even to the point of becoming the Mother of the Son of God. At the origin of the Immaculate Conception of Mary Most Holy, therefore, is the presence of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in her from the first moment of her existence and will dwell in her for all eternity.
