The Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Today is August the fourteenth, of the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten. It is the Feast Day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, my own patron saint that I took at my Confirmation over a year ago. His story is one of inspiration, one of absolute faith, and one of a pure and Christ-like love for his fellow men and women.

On January 8, 1894 he was born with the name of Rajmund Jolbe in Zdunska Wola, a part of the Russian Empire in what would later become the nation of Poland. His early life was hardly remarkable for his time, he had four brothers, of which two died before the age of five. His family moved to Pabianice where they were basked weavers, sold groceries, and worked in the mills. In 1914 his father was hung for fighting for Polish independence.

During his childhood, he had a vision of the Virgin Mary that would influence him a great deal, one that he would later describe thusly, “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.”

In keeping with this vision and his response he and his elder brother Francis would illegally cross the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary in 1907 to join the Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow. Three years later the future saint would enter into the Conventual Franciscans as a novitiate, a year after that were his first vows and where he adopted the name of Maximilian; then in 1914 as the First World War would break out, he made his final vows and adopted the names Maximilian Maria in order to show his fealty and devotion to the Blessed Virgin. By 1915 he earned his doctorate in philosophy (Ph.D.) from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and would earn his doctorate in theology by 1919 at the Pontifical University of Saint Bonaventure.

It was during these academic years that he would come to witness a number of demonstrations against Popes Saint Pius X and Pope Benedict XV, which would inspire him to create the Militia Immaculata, or more commonly known, the Army of Mary; whose goal was to work for the conversion of sinners and enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. To say that this endeavour was successful is an understatement, and it is shown easily why he is a patron saint to journalists amongst others; the Immaculata would have a monthly circulation with a daily newspaper that reached 230,000 and a monthly magazine with a circulation of more than one million subscribers.

He became a priest in 1918 and as he worked on his burgeoning devotion of love to the Blessed Virgin in the form of media, he was able to raise the money and supervise the construction of a monastery that was founded near Warsaw, a seminary, a radio station, and more printing offices. During the Great Depression he would travel to Japan to carry out missionary work at a time when that nation was still firmly rooted in Shinto beliefs, and against their advice, would build a monastery on a mountainside that many told him was against harmony with nature. This monastery remains prominent to this day amongst Catholics in Japan, and is a site of pilgrimage for many. Furthermore, by defying Shinto beliefs about the building site, he saved his monastery; you see the monastery was built in a city called Nagasaki, and years after its construction the second and last atomic weapon used in anger would be dropped there, the monastery was saved because it was on the other side of the mountain than the one which took the brunt of the blast.

World War Two broke out only three years after he returned to Poland, and he would end up sheltering up to two thousand Jews from persecution in his friary. However, as so many discovered during that war, doing the right thing had a price. Up until this point, his life had been lived with a white crown of purity as seen in his childhood vision, but soon he would come to wear the red crown as well. On February 17, 1941 the Gestapo came for him, and imprisoned him at Pawiak, transferring him to the death camp of Auschwitz on May 28 where he would be known simply as prisoner number 16670.

Two months went by, with Kolbe doing his best to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass in his barracks in secret and singing devotional hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then, in July, a man vanished from his barracks. The Deputy Commander of the death camp called the men out to face him and he selected ten of them at random to be starved to death in Block Thirteen to deter any further attempts at escape (even more tragically the man who supposedly escaped was found drowned in a camp latrine not long after). One of the men who had been chosen at random, Franciszek Gajowniczek would actually cry out about his wife and children, at which point the future saint volunteered his life for the other man’s. When asked who he was, his reply was not a name or his prisoner number, simply the words, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.”

While in the starvation cell he celebrated the Mass each day as long as he was able and gave Holy Communion to the prisoners. Despite it being a starvation cell, sympathetic guards would give them wine to use, and he would lead the other men who were condemned to the long death in prayer and song. Three weeks of dehydration and starvation, despite some sympathetic guards, would leave only Kolbe and three others alive. He did his best to encourage his fellow prisoners that death was not the end, and that soon they would be in Heaven. Each time the guards would look in on him, he would be standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and look calmly at those who entered.

Eventually he was the last of the men left alive, having watched them precede him on life’s final journey one by one. A group of SS soldiers came in to give him a lethal injection of carbolic acid, and some of those soldiers who survived the war would later testify that he calmly raised his arm to them, fully accepting what was about to happen. The red crown of martyrdom he had accepted so long ago had come to him, and he could pass on to the life that awaited in Heaven. In a fitting manner to his Marian devotion, his remains were cremated on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.

As for Franciszek Gajowniczek, the man that Maximilian Kolbe gave up his life in exchange for, his story did not end in the death camp. His sons were killed during a Soviet bombardment, but he would be released after surviving five years, five months, and nine days in the infamous place that many would later come to identify with the ultimate evil of the Nazi oppression and tyranny. His wife, he would be reunited with, and would spend another three decades with her until she passed away. In 1971 he was a guest of Pope Paul VI at Kolbe’s beatification in Rome.
In 1994 he would visit Saint Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church in Houston, where he told his translator that “so long as he…has breath in his lungs, he would consider it his duty to tell people about the heroic act of love by Maximilian Kolbe.” On March 13, 1995 he would die, not too much longer than fifty-three years after his life was spared, and he was survived by his second wife, Janina.

Why did I choose him as my patron saint then? I am certainly not martyr material, nor am I a journalist, despite my thesis on media impacts of people’s perceptions of crime. I am not a drug addict or an amateur radio enthusiast. Though my inner history buff could certainly relate to the “Patron Saint of our difficult century” as Pope John Paul II would call him.

So often in his life, Saint Maximilian Kolbe was told that he was doomed to failure in his endeavours. His superiors thought him mad for wanting to publish a newspaper and a magazine in poor rural Poland and told him to raise the money and get the subscribers on his own; despite the impossible odds of doing so, he prevailed with God on his side. When the Japanese told him that it was an affront to their Shinto beliefs to build a monastery on the opposite side of the mountain from the city, he refused to back down, and his monastery was spared the wrath of an atomic bomb. When he was told, after replacing Gajowniczek that it would take only a week or two to die, he survived for three.

Of all the things that I am in life, I am a survivor and I am stubborn. I can truly identify with the strive to overcome odds, no matter what stands in the way. Plus there were little signs along the way: the novena to him when I was considering my conversion that seventeen people apparently took part in, that he kept popping up in random places while I was discerning whom to pick (including a friend’s mother meeting a concentration camp survivor in a hospital she worked at, telling her the most amazing thing he had seen during the war…some big Catholic missionary giving his life for a man with children and a wife), and that I could think of no one else who quite resonated with me. Maximilian Kolbe was not born to riches and privilege, but rather to having to strive for everything. I was fortunate to have loving and supporting parents, just as he did, although mine mostly paid for undergrad in college thanks to their own funds, a SMART 529, and my own scholarships; but everything after undergrad, I’m responsible for. I’m now a candidate for a doctoral degree, and with the love and support behind me, just like this saint, I have gone forward to strive for what I know is possible with God’s aid.

I suppose I will end this entry with a reflection of sorts on the time when Saint Maximilian Kolbe would lay down his life for his fellow man and acknowledge that his sacrifice during this time period also probably drew me to him. The Second World War showed us the worst of humanity; the extermination of millions, the intentional destruction of civilian targets by all sides. We can only hope that never again will the human race be subjected to a war of such scale and nature, that we may never again lose sight of who we are as a species, and as a people. Imprisonment, torture, and execution…by all sides. The specter of genocide which still haunts this world in certain areas must never again reach the levels that were perpetrated by the Nazis, for we have failed as a species to honor the words “never again”. As Primo Levi wrote shortly before his death, “it has happened before, and we know that it must happen again”, but let us make sure if it is truly inevitable, that this sort of suffering and hatred remains minimized and contained if at all possible.

Upon visiting Auschwitz last year, Pope Benedict XVI most likely put it best in saying that there was no adequate theological response, nor perhaps even an adequate response at all in the sum of human knowledge for the horrors that had taken place there, “In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again”.

Maximilian Kolbe did not show hate for those who put him to death alongside so many others over the course of the death camp’s history. So before we give in to our anger over silly little things, let us remember that instead we should take a moment of silence, and take things stoically. Let us not allow ourselves to grow angry and accuse God of tolerating the intolerable, but rather, let us bow our heads and think of all those who have gone before us throughout the ages, and remember that far worse things have happened to the innocent than the minor problems of our own brief lives.

Corpus Christi

Today was the Feast of Corpus Christi, in which we celebrate the Blessed Sacrament. The readings began to Melchizedek, the mysterious Priest-King of Salem (later Jerusalem) who not only held the dual rank which was so strange, but offered sacrifice to God in the form of bread and wine. A precursor, one must think, to the Priest-King who would come, and Who would also break bread and wine and make them into His body and His blood.

The second reading was the most commonly quoted Sacred Scripture for Communion in the Protestant churches where I grew up. First Corinthians, Chapter 11, verses 23-36.

Brothers and sisters:
I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was handed over,
took bread, and, after he had given thanks,
broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying,
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

And that, sadly, is where the Mass reading stopped, just as that passage did at those Protestant churches. The next couple of verses are part of what convinced me of the validity of the Church and of the Eucharist. 1 Corinthians, 11: 27-31.

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment;

An examination of conscience, but more than that, answering for unworthily receiving the body and blood of the Lord. If Communion was a mere symbol, than how would we been unworthy to receive a symbol? Rather, Paul states that it is the body and the blood of the Lord. Let me just repeat that in a paraphrased manner, in keeping with those who say "show it to me in the Bible", Paul says it's the body and blood of Christ!

Then came the feeding of the five thousand in Gospel. Which, if one is to look at it one way, is a misnomer. Christ and His Disciples did not feed a mere five thousand. The Gospel only counts the men, not the women and children. The number was most likely far larger!!

Fr. Chris's homily today spoke about how many times in life, when we encounter a major event, we have a dinner of some sort, a big one. Weddings, funerals, graduations, etc. Yet after this large gathering and preaching to a crowd, there was so little food, yet the King of Kings used what little there was to make it a feast.

So too, Fr. Chris reminded us, does God give us a feast in a small package today. The Host, so tiny and bland tasting, contains the fullness of God, the source and the summit of our Faith! The greatest gift of all, and a foretaste of the Feast of Heaven. He did what so many priests are afraid to do, and he spoke of the Real Presence!

Yesterday on my birthday in Confession, I was treated with genuine care and compassion, both for my spiritual needs and for my physical problems with my hand. It did more to re-awaken in me my faith than anything else could have. Today I attended this Solemnity, and thanked God for each moment of it, even in the pain. As one nun once said after failing to witness any of the miracles associated with the supposed apparitions of the Blessed Virgin in a Bosnian village, "I don't need to see, because I witness a miracle every time I go to Mass".

Bread and wine, body and blood. So many would not have died for the Faith if it were not the Truth. The Apostles would not have gone willingly to martyrdom for a lie. St. Tarcisius would not have sheltered the Eucharist as he was beaten to death, with his final words to a fellow Christian be to ask if the Lord was safe, if the Eucharist were a lie. So many have died for Him, that it is nothing to ask that we live for Him.

Martyrdom and the Fear of it

I remember when I was younger that my mother spoke of when she was young and they were shown propaganda films (my wording not hers) at church of the Soviet Union tying people to stakes and asking them if they were a Christian, and then killing them by firing squad when they admitted to it. That story has always stuck with me since I was fifteen or so, at first because I viewed it as blatant propaganda, which I still do to an extent, but also rather, due to my own fears and to a respect I hold for those who have given their lives for what they believe.

Only one of Christ's disciples (bar Judas) died of natural causes; John, the Beloved Disciple lived to a very ripe old age, but not without pain and hardship and exile. Tradition states that the following happened: Peter was crucified upside down in Rome at his request under the Emperor Nero. Andrew died in Edessa, Greece by being severely scourged on an x-shaped cross, left to hang there dying for two days before he at least went to his reward. James was the first to die in Jerusalem, where he was beheaded with a sword. Philip was crucified in Hieropolis, Syria. Bartholomew, was flayed and crucified head down in either Armenia or India. Thomas, most known for his doubts, met his end in Edessa, Greece being lanced and then burned alive. Matthew was axed to death with a halberd in Nadabah, Ethiopia. James (son of Alphaeus)was thrown from a temple roof in Jerusalem, but survived his fall and was clubbed to death by a crowd that included a young man who would one day become known as Paul. Jude was also crucified in Edessa, Greece. Simon the Zealot was crucified somewhere in Europe. Matthias, who was chosen in council by the Eleven to replace Judas was stoned and beheaded in Jerusalem. And though he was not one of the original disciples, I will include him; Paul who once willingly joined a crowd to martyr James, would die for Christ by being beheaded outside the walls of Rome.

The stories continue to surface through the ages. People burned alive and crucified for their beliefs. The ancient Romans occasionally enjoyed placing Christians on a frozen lake naked to die, allowing them to the warmth of the fires if they renounced Christ; one instance tells that a Christian did just that, only for one of the legion to strip and take his place. People fed to beasts, burned in oil, stoned, pressed, and all manner of horrible things for failing to renounce their faith in Christ.

On occasion I must ask myself why God continues to allow it to happen even now in some nations, where Christians are outright killed or taken from their homes in the middle of the night to be imprisoned and executed. In chapter fifty of his renowned work, Apologeticus, Tertullian makes the claim that, "The Blood of the Martyrs is the Seed of the Church". While that is true in its own way, that the death of a person for a cause is bound to attract people to know what would cause a person to die for that cause...I like to think there is a greater reason.

Why would God allow for martyrdom? Laying aside that of the book of Revelation with the martyred ones crying out for vengeance against the anti-Christ; God allowed his own Son to be crucified upon a Cross and to take the sins of the world upon His shoulders. A sacrifice that would exist throughout time and outside of time within what some refer to as Kairos. If being put to death is good enough for God's own Son, then why not for His followers at times?

We are fortunate here in the United States and much of the First World, that we do not need to live in the fear of what will happen to us for worshiping the Christ. Indeed, it often seems as if the biggest problems facing Western Christendom are issues such as abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, censorship...but very rarely it seems, that of the chance we will not be alive tomorrow because of what we believe. Yes, I know, there have been times even in the recent past where that may not be the case, but for the most part it is.

Yet to this day, people continue to disappear in certain nations for their beliefs. To this day people still die for professing the name of Christ upon their lips. What inspired this post was something over on Phatmass, a chilling reminder that the blood of these 'witnesses' continues to flow; the crucifixion of Christians by guerrillas is still going on in the Sudan.