BORN 1894; DIED 1941 mitted a deep faith to each of their sons. Maxi- PRIEST AND milian learned to pray at a very young age and FEAST DAY: AUGUST 14 was an obedient child, yet he was full of mischief �t. �aximilianand sometimes wild, Kolbe a worry to his mother. One N THE MIDST of the worst horrors humanity in- day when he was about twelve, after his mother flicts on itself, God raises up to show had expressed especially great anxiety, he prayed I that good cannot be destroyed. St. Maximilian before a statue of the Blessed Mother, asking Kolbe, martyred in a Nazi death camp partway what would become of him. He saw a vision of through World War II, was such a . her in which she held two crowns, a white one for Maximilan was born at Zdunska-Wola, a vil- purity and a red one for martyrdom. She asked lage near Lodz, , the second of four sons him whether he would accept either, and he re- (one of whom died in infancy) of Julius Kolbe plied that he would accept both. and Marianne Dabrowska. They were weavers Maximilian’s parents could afford to educate of little means. Fran- only their eldest son. However, Maximilian’s in- ciscan tertiaries, telligence was noticed by a local pharmacist, who they led exemplary tutored him so that he was able to join his older lives and brother in minor seminary when he was thirteen. trans- There he was most interested in mathematics and physics, especially astronomy and rocketry, and considered pursuing a career in science. Al- though he was also interested in the military, he was influenced by the example of a Franciscan who had been an officer in the Polish army, then gave up military life to become a priest renowned for his , whose was near his home. During this period, he also suffered from scru- pulosity (an excessive anxiety about sinfulness), and thought he was unfit for religious life. His mother allayed his anxiety and, at seventeen, he became a Franciscan. Despite poor health (prob- ably tuberculosis), at eighteen he was sent to to study for the priesthood. (Some of his sketches of spacecraft designs were

PAUL KERRIS filed with a patent office while he was at seminary in Rome.) At twenty-one, Maximil- ian earned a doctorate in philos- ophy. Two years later, still at seminary in Rome, he took the first definitive step in what became his lifelong apostolate. With six other , in 1917 he organized a sodality, the Knights of the Immaculata (that is, of the Blessed

The Association for Catechumenal Ministry (ACM) grants the original purchaser (parish, local parochial institution, or individual) permission to reproduce this handout. Mother), with a mission to pray for sinners and prise. The Knight of the Immaculata’s press run rose to combat hostility to the Catholic faith, which he to seven hundred fifty thousand monthly, a news- had especially noted in Masonic-inspired dem- paper The Little Daily achieved a peak circulation onstrations against Catholicism. The Knights’ of two hundred twenty-five thousand on Sundays, badge was the that had been and several other periodicals were published, along made known through St. Catherine Labouré in with a multitude of tracts on catechetical and de- 1832. He was ordained a priest in the follow- votional subjects. Niepokalanow quickly became ing year, and went to Kracow, Poland in 1919 to a large self-contained community with a seminary, teach Church history in a seminary. This assign- , hospital, electrical plant, fire department, ment did not last long, as his chronic tuberculo- and airport. The Knights of Immaculata quickly sis became acute and he came close to dying. He grew and Maximilian traveled to chapter groups was confined to a sanitarium for twenty months. all over Europe. In 1922 he was awarded a doctorate in theology. In 1930, Maximilian and four other friars In the same year, 1922, Maximilian took the moved to . Within a month of his arriv- next step in his apostolate, founding a magazine of al, he published the first issue of a Japanese-lan- apologetics that he entitled Knights of the Immacula- guage Knight. By 1936, it achieved a ta. The costs initially covered by donations, he circulation of sixty-five thousand. The began with old printing presses. When year after his arrival, he founded a the press run had increased to for- Franciscan community at ty-five thousand issues monthly, he with the same publishing apostolate was able to purchase new presses, as Niepokalanow. (In mid-1932 he and within five years, the press went to Malabar, and founded run had increased to seventy a third monastery along the lines of thousand. During this peri- Niepokalanow, which however did od he experienced another not last.) Almost single-handed- bout with acute tuber- ly he had built up an empire of culosis, forcing him to the printed word, all in the take leave for nine- service of God through the teen months. How- Immaculata, the Blessed ever, shortly after he Mother. In 1936, Maxi- was again able to milian returned to Poland work, his cease- in poor health, hemorrhag- less energy re- ing blood as a result of his sulting in the es- tuberculosis. His health tablishment of a again improved, and Niepoka- new Franciscan lanow began a radio station at monastery, called the end of 1938, with future Niepokalanow hopes for a movie studio (“City of the as well. By this time, there Immaculata”), were over seven hundred on donated land sixty monks at Niepokala- near . Be- now, the largest monastery gun with two priests in the world. and eighteen broth- World War II began with ers, the monastic life Nazi ’s invasion of of holy poverty and Poland. Maximilian sent prayer supported all but five priests and what became an enor- fifty brothers away. mous publishing enter- Shortly after the inva- , by Timothy Schmalz

St. ~ Page 2 “He told everyone that the way to glory was through the cross.” sion began, the German army pillaged and looted When he was discharged from the infirmary, Niepokalanow. The friars were briefly interned Maximilian was assigned to farm labor. One night, and then allowed to return, and eventually three a prisoner was discovered missing at roll call. The hundred of those who had been sent away re- guards kept all the men in his group standing all turned. The monastery became a hospital and a the next day in the hot late-July sun, with no food refuge for between two and three thousand , or water. At the end of the day, when the escap- of whom two-thirds were Jewish. The friars ee had not been found (he was later discovered shared everything they had with these refugees, drowned in a camp latrine), ten men were select- and at the same time continued to publish Knight ed to be starved to death in place of the escapee. for some months, with articles critical of Nazi One of the men, , a ser- Germany. In early 1941, The Nazis shut every- geant in the Polish resistance, broke down in an- thing down and Maximilian and four other priests guished weeping at the probable fate of his wife were thrown into prison in Warsaw. Again ill, he and children. Maximilian stepped forward and was confined to the prison infirmary. In late May waited to be recognized, which the commandant 1941, the five priests were loaded into train cars in charge of the group did with a sneer. He then with three hundred other prisoners and sent to the identified himself as a Catholic priest, and told the concentration camp of Auschwitz. camp commandant that he wished to die in place For those not immediately gassed, life in Aus- of Gajowniczek, since he was “old” (and presum- chwitz was nearly unbearable. Daily food consist- ably useless as a worker) while the sergeant had a ed of a cup of imitation coffee in the morning, and wife and children. Surprisingly, the commandant thin soup and half a loaf of bread when the work agreed, and the entire camp soon learned of what of the day was done. Prisoners were subjected to had occurred, the only time such an incident took beatings and torture. Priests and other religious place at Auschwitz. leaders were often singled out for the worst work. Maximilian and the other nine men were stripped Maximilian hauled wheelbarrows full of gravel for naked and put in a bunker. For fourteen days, the construction of a crematorium, and carried corps- prisoners slowly died of thirst and starvation. Their es to crematoriums. He was beaten often and dogs thirst led them to lick moisture off the walls and to were set upon him, but he never cried out, instead drink their own urine. During those days of ago- praying for the guards who beat him. He was once ny, instead of the expected screaming and weep- ordered to run with a heavy load of planks on his ing, the guards who came to remove the dead heard back and, when he fell, he was kicked in the face Maximilian encouraging the others, singing hymns, and stomach, given fifty lashes, and left for dead leading the prisoners in prayer such as the psalms in the mud. Smuggled into the camp infirmary, and the , and offering meditations on the he recovered, hearing confessions the entire time. Passion of Jesus. At inspections, he was usually When anyone could smuggle in bread and wine, he found kneeling or standing in the center, cheerfully celebrated Mass. He rarely rested at night, hear- smiling, even when the others could no longer rise. ing confessions and praying with anyone in need. Toward the end, he whispered prayers that he no He showed compassion to those who suffered even longer had the energy to speak aloud. Finally the more than he did, sharing his meager rations and bunker was needed for a new batch of prisoners. sometimes not getting any, since he did not fight for Four men were still alive, Maximilian alone fully food. He told everyone that the way to glory was conscious and completely composed. They were through the cross. Another flare-up of tuberculo- executed by lethal injections of carbolic acid. The sis put him back in the infirmary, where he ensured bright light of this holy son of Mary, the founding that everyone got medical treatment before he did Knight of the Immaculata, shone forth even more and heard confessions from his bed. He pleaded brilliantly in his martyrdom. The Militia of the Im- with his fellow prisoners to forgive their persecutors maculata today counts nearly four million conse- and to overcome evil with good. crated lay members in forty-six nations.

St. Maximilian Kolbe ~ Page 3