St. Kolbe was right about everything.
- Roland Flores
- 6 days ago
- 9 min read
Ave María! May Our Lady, the Immaculate Mother of God, Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces, together with St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us! As the time to renew our consecration to Our Lady draws near, I recently listened to a few videos (links are in the references) concerning St. Kolbe and his method of consecration. These videos inspired me to look further into the life, teachings and institutions that St. Kolbe established against the modern enemies of God.
Who was St. Maximilian Kolbe.
St. Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 in a city called Zduńska Wola, in the kingdom of Poland, a puppet state for the Russian Empire. His parents were extremely religious, both members of the Franciscan third order. In 1903, when St. Kolbe was 9 years old, he received a vision from Our Lady. According to St. Kolbe, one night he asked the Mother of God what was to become of him and she appeared holding two crowns, one white and the other red. She asked him if he was willing to accept either crown, the white one meaning a consecrated life in virginity and the red that he should become a martyr. The young but holy St. Kolbe said that he would accept them both. It should be noted that St. Kolbe was homeschool by his parents, since the schools were all instruments of the anti-Catholic Russian government. In 1907, at the age of 13, St. Kolbe attempted to enter the convent of Conventual Franciscans, however he received religious instructions and was sent home. In 1910, the Franciscans allowed St. Kolbe to enter at the age of 16, at the Conventual Franciscan Friary in Lwów, in present-day Ukraine. In 1912 St. Kolbe was sent to study in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1914 St. Kolbe made his final vow taking the name Maximilian María Kolbe. Shortly after however, World War I broke out and back home, St. Kolbe’s father, Julius Kolbe, joined the Polish Legions, a unit in the Austro-Hungarian Army. Wanting his land to be restored to a Catholic Monarchy many Poles fought in favor of Catholic Austria against France, Britain, and Russia. Julius was captured later that year by the Imperial Russian Army and was hanged as a traitor. The news of his fathers death shocked St. Kolbe but only strengthened his resolve even more. In 1915 St. Kolbe earned a Doctor of Philosophyfrom the Gregorian and then continued his studies at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure in Rome, where he earned a doctorate in theology in 1919. 1918 St. Kolbe was ordained a priest. During this period of Study in Rome two major events occurred. The first is he became active in the consecration to Mary. The second is St. Kolbe witnessed multiple demonstrations by Freemasons against the Church. Demonstrators placed the black standard of the "Giordano Brunisti" under the windows of the Vatican. They carried a standard with a blasphemous image of the archangel Michael, under the feet of a triumphant Lucifer. Upon seeing this St. Kolbe became an organization dedicated to Our Lady committed to fighting Freemasonry and other servants of Lucifer. St. Kolbe took this idea and went to his spiritual director and confessor, Father Alessandro Basile SJ. Another idea St. Kolbe had, perhaps inspired by St. Franci, was to go to the Freemason lodge and preach to the grandmaster. This idea which would have likely led to his martyrdom was denied. Once he received permission to start the Militlia immaculata, under Holy obedience, he began his work. One night, two priests and five lay brothers met at their friary, and before little statue of the Immaculata between two lighted candles the Militia Immaculatae “Army of the Immaculate " was formed. In 1920 St. Kolbe returned to Poland, to teach at the Kraków Seminary. Poland was not an independent liberal republic and St. Kolbe strongly opposed many of the liberal errors there but none as harshly as the growing communist sentiments. In 1922 tuberculosis forced St. Kolbe to stop teaching at the seminary and allowed him to focus more on the Militia Immaculatae. In January 1922, St. Kolbe founded the monthly periodical Knight of the Immaculata, a devotional publication based on the French Messenger of the Heart of Jesus. From 1922 to 1926, he operated a religious publishing press in Grodno in present-day Belarus. As his activities grew and in 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanów near Warsaw. It became a major religious center for the Militia Immaculatae. Inspired by a group of Japanese Catholics studying in Poland, St. Kolbe decided to take Missionary trip to Asia to help the shortage of priests and convert souls from paganism. In 1930 St. Kolbe arrived in Shanghai, China and began a Mission but left shortly after due to a lack on converts. In 1931 St. Kolbe arrived in Japan and there he converted many souls, establishing a monastery called the Garden of the Immaculata just outside of Nagasaki. It should be noted that the location he built his monastery was inspired by Our Lady and against the local Shinto tradition. For this reason in 1945, when Nagasaki was bombed by the US, his monastery was the only religious building to survive the blast.
His monastery soon began publishing a Japanese edition of the Knight of the Immaculata. In 1932, St. Kolbe left Japan for Malabar, British India, where he again converted many and founded another monastery. In 1933 St. Kolbe returned to Poland and in 1936 St. Kolbe was appointed guardian of Niepokalanów. In 1938, he started a radio station for the Militia Immaculatae. In September 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and St. Kolbe was one of the few priests who remained in the monastery, where he organized a temporary hospital.After the Nazi captured Niepokalanów, they arrested Kolbe on 19 September 1939 for establishing a military hospital at his monastery. While in custody, Kolbe refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste (German People's List). Doing so would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his ethnic German ancestry. The Germans released him on 8 December 1939 and St. Kolbe continued his work for the Immaculata, speak out against the Nazi and communists alike. St. Kolbe also opened his monastery as a place of refuge for those displaced by the war. On 17 February 1941, the Gestapo shut down St. Kolbe’s monastery and arrested him along with four other friars. He was incarcerated in a prison in Warsaw and On 28 May 1941, the Germans transferred Kolbe to the Auschwitz concentration camp as prisoner 16670. At the end of July 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. In reprisal, the camp commander, ordered guards to pick ten men to be starved to death. When selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish Catholic, cried out, "My wife! My children!" At that moment, St. Kolbe volunteered to take his place. An assistant janitor later testified that St. Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer from his prison cell. Each time the guards checked on him, he was calmly standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell. After the group had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only St. Kolbe and three others remained. Impatient to empty the bunker, the guards gave the four remaining prisoners lethal injections of carbolic acid. St. Maximilian Kolbe died on 14 August 1941 and was cremated on 15 August, which happened to be the feast day of the Assumption of Mary. On 12 May 1955, Kolbe was recognized by Pope Pius XII as a servant of God and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 10 October 1982. Pope John Paul II declared him a confessor and a martyr.
The modern problem according to St. Kolbe.
The location and perpetrators of St. Kolbe’s death often overshadow his actual writings. St. Kolbe was a staunch enemy of Freemasonry, Zionism, Communism and liberalism. In his first publication of Knight of the Immaculate, St. Kolbe claimed: “Freemason are an organized clique of fanatical [Zionists], who want to destroy the church." At the initial meeting of the Miltia Immaculata in 1917, The purpose of the association was defined as: “the conversion of sinners, heretics, schismatics, Jews, and especially Freemasons.” Later on in 1918 St. Kolbe explained: “especially Freemasons, because these poor people, although in a hidden manner, constitute the real head of the most varied attacks on God, the Church and the salvation of souls.” In another publication in 1939 St. Kolbe stated: “Atheistic Communism seems to rage ever more wildly. Its origin can easily be located in that criminal mafia that calls itself Freemasonry, and the hand that is guiding all that toward a clear goal is international Zionism.” Fearlessly, St. Kolbe named the enemies of God. St. Kolbe and they interference with global politics. St. Kolbe continued with the problem: “analyzing recent events, we see clearly that things here in Poland are going badly. We have the impression that a mysterious hand is continuously putting up obstacles and drawing us toward ruin. All over the world there is a war being waged against the church and against the happiness of souls. The enemy shows itself under different appearances and various names. Everyone knows how socialism, taking advantage of the poor condition of workers, has inoculated them with the poison of unbelief. We see how the Bolsheviks persecute the church. All these blocks from a compact battlefront against the church but what unites them? it is well known to everyone that it is the [Zionists] who are behind socialism and who govern presently in Bolshevik Russia… this force, which no longer hides itself, is the Judeo-Masonic conspiration. From now on it isn't necessary to point out its characteristics for it is obvious to everyone.”St. Kolbe continues in the same publication: “confronted with these facts can one doubt any longer about who is the hand under whom the enemies of the church, whether they know it or not, combat ? This is the mysterious hand it pushes our country to ruin. Before such attacks from the enemies of the Church of God is it permitted for us to remain inactive? no we each have the holy duty to go into the trenches and repel these acts with our own bodies!”
The solution according to St. Kolbe.
St. Kolbe however, did not solely speak of the enemies of the Church but of the solution. St. Kolbe gives the solution: “Even the most inspired man cannot confront the fight with Satan. Only the Immaculate was given the promise that she would crush the head of the serpent.” St. Kolbe echoed the words that sum up Fatima: “only she can help you.” Perhaps St. Kolbe had this in mind when he wrote: “ I think that her flag shall fly even over the kremlin and so on. In a word, she will truly be the queen of every heart and will introduce into every heart divine love, the love of the heart of Jesus. Then the end of the MI will be attained.”That is why St. Kolbe’s solution to the problems of the modern world and in order to combat the enemy, was the formation of the Milita Immaculata. So that every Catholic could participate in her struggle and in her triumph. “"The Immaculata has her own plans. She is our Commander-in-Chief. So let her further the cause.” St. Kolbe taught that in order for us to truly participate in Our Lady’s work we would have to be Her "property and possession.” This would only be possible through our total consecration to Our Lady. St. Kolbe explains in a 1919 commentary on his consecration: “With these words we pray, implore the Immaculate that she deign to welcome us, and we give ourselves up to her completely and in all respects as her children, her slaves of love, her servants, her instruments, in every respect, under any name that any person at any time could possibly still devise. And all that as a possession and property at her full disposal, that she may make use of us and exploit us until we are fully consumed.” And St. Kolbe concludes that since Our Lady works “sanctificationem omnium” [for the sanctification of all], consecration to her is “To infuse and to enhance the glory of the Immaculate, to conquer souls over to her, means to win souls over to the Mother of Jesus, who introduces the Kingdom of Jesus into them.”
Total consecration to the Immaculata according to St. Kolbe.
(For 29 November to 8 December)
O Immaculate, Queen of heaven and earth, Refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother, God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to You, I, an unworthy sinner, cast myself at Your feet, humbly imploring You to take me with all that I am and have, wholly to Yourself as Your possession and property. Please make of me, of all my powers of soul and body, of my whole life, death, and eternity, whatever pleases You. If it pleases You, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what has been said of You: “She will crush your head”, and “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the whole world.” Let me be a fit instrument in Your immaculate and most merciful hands for introducing and increasing Your glory to the maximum in all the many strayed and indifferent souls, and thus help extend as far as possible the blessed Kingdom of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. For, wherever You enter, You obtain the grace of conversion and sanctification, since it is through Your hands that all graces come to us from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
V.Allow me to praise You, O most holy Virgin.
R. Give me strength against Your enemies.
References:
Maximillian Kolbe Biography.
Poland: The Society Follows in Fr. Kolbe’s Footsteps.
Fr. Timothy Pfieffer. (Militia Immaculata) at St. Joseph Chapel San Antonio, TX, SSPX.
St. Maximilian Kolbe: Model for Our Age | Fr.
Isaac Mary Relyea.
A Note on How to Prepare oneself for the Solemn Act of Consecration
Knights of the Immaculate archive
ABOUT ST. MAXIMILIAN MARIA KOLBE
Legendary Martyr: Maximilian Kolbe