Madonna
of the Eucharist ~ Botticelli
"Let us give ourselves to
the Immaculata.
Let her prepare us,
let her receive Him in Holy
Communion.
This is the manner most
perfect and pleasing
to the Lord Jesus
and brings great fruit to
us."
St. Maximilian Kolbe
Priest,
Martyr
Poland
~1894-1941
FEAST DAY - August
14
“When
the conquest for the Immaculate of the whole world and of every single soul now
living or to live until the end of the world, and through Her for the Most
Sacred Heart of Jesus is completed, ... then souls will love the Sacred Heart as
they have never as yet loved Him, because like Her they will have been immersed
as never before in the mystery of love: the Cross, the Eucharist. Through Her
the love of God will inflame the world, will set it on fire, and will effect the
‘assumption’ of souls,... the divinization of the entire
world.”
~ St.
Maximilian Kolbe
St Maximilian,
ora pro nobis!
More
on St Maximilian
(From Saint of the Day - www.americancatholic.org)
I
don’t know what’s going to become of you!” How many parents have said that?
Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s reaction was, “I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me
what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one
white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the
other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.” After
that he was not the same.
He
entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív (then
Poland , now
Ukraine ), near his birthplace, and at
16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and
theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket
ships.
Ordained
at 24, he saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His
mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata,
whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work and
suffering. He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata,, a
religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all
nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the
Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later
founded one in Nagasaki ,
Japan . Both the
Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and
subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary.
In
1939 the Nazi panzers overran Poland with deadly speed.
Niepokalanow was severely bombed. Kolbe and his friars were arrested, then
released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
In
1941 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones,
the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz
three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations.
A
prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He
relished walkin g along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being
marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the
line. “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who
are you?” “A priest.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant,
dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis
Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the
“block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began
in darkness. But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the
Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat
in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the
hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with
all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982.
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