Everything about Maximilian Kolbe totally explained
Maximilian Kolbe (
January 8 1894–
August 14 1941), also known as
Maksymilian or
Massimiliano Maria Kolbe and "Apostle of Consecration to Mary," born as
Rajmund Kolbe, was a
Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the
Nazi concentration camp of
Auschwitz in
Poland.
He was canonized by the
Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on
October 10 1982 by
Pope John Paul II, and declared a
martyr of
charity. He is the
patron saint of drug addicts, Pope John Paul II declared him the "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century".
Biography
Maximilian Kolbe was born in January 1894 in
Zduńska Wola, which was at that time part of
Russian Empire. Maximilian was the second son of Julius Kolbe and Maria Dabrowska. His father was an ethnic German and his mother of Polish origins. He had four brothers, Francis, Joseph, Walenty (who lived a year) and Andrew (who lived 4 years). His parents moved to
Pabianice where they worked first as
weavers. Later his mother worked as a midwife (often donating her services), and owned a shop in part of her rented house which sold groceries and household goods. Julius Kolbe worked at the Krushe and Ender Mill and also worked on rented land where he grew vegetables. In 1914 Julius joined
Józef Piłsudski's
Polish Legions and was captured by the
Russians for fighting for the independence of a
partitioned Poland.
In 1907 Kolbe and his elder brother Francis decided to join the
Conventual Franciscans. They illegally crossed the border between Russia and
Austria-Hungary and joined the Conventual Franciscan
junior seminary in
Lwów. In 1910 Kolbe was allowed to enter the
novitiate. He professed his
first vows in 1911, adopting the name Maximilian, and the
final vows in 1914, in
Rome, adopting the names Maximilian Maria, to show his veneration of the
Blessed Virgin Mary.
In 1912 he was sent to
Kraków, and in the same year to
Rome, where he studied
philosophy,
theology,
mathematics, and
physics. He took a great interest in astrophysics and the prospect of space flight and the military. While in Rome he designed an airplane-like spacecraft, similar in concept to the eventual
space shuttle, and attempted to patent it. He earned a
doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the
Pontifical Gregorian University, and the doctorate in theology in 1919 at the Pontifical University of St.
Bonaventure. During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against
Popes St. Pius X and
Benedict XV by the
Freemasons in Rome and was inspired to organize the
Militia Immaculata, or Army of Mary, to work for conversion of sinners and the enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. In 1918 he was
ordained a
priest. In the conservative publications of the
Militia Immaculatae, he particularly condemned
Freemasonry,
Communism,
Zionism,
Capitalism and
Imperialism.
In 1919 he returned to the
newly independent Poland, where he was very active in promoting the veneration of the
Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of
Niepokalanów near
Warsaw, a seminary, a
radio station and several other organizations and publications. Between 1930 and 1936 he took a series of
missions to
Japan, where he founded a monastery at the outskirts of
Nagasaki, a Japanese paper and a seminary. The monastery he founded remains prominent in the Roman Catholic Church in Japan. Kolbe decided to build the monastery on a mountain side that, according to Shinto beliefs, wasn't the side best suited to be in tune with nature. When the
atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Kolbe's monastery was saved because the blast of the bomb hit the other side of the mountain, which took the main force of the blast. Had Kolbe built the monastery on the preferred side of mountain as he was advised, his work and all of his fellow monks would have been destroyed.
Auschwitz
During the
Second World War he provided shelter to refugees from
Greater Poland, including 2,000
Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in
Niepokalanów. He was also active as a
radio amateur, with Polish call letters SP3RN, vilifying
Nazi activities through his reports.
On
February 17 1941 he was arrested by the German
Gestapo and imprisoned in the
Pawiak prison, and on May 25 was transferred to
Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670.
In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting
SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13 (notorious for
torture), in order to deter further escape attempts. (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.) One of the selected men,
Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.
During the time in the cell he led the men in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. Finally he was murdered with an injection of
carbolic acid.
Canonization
Father Kolbe was beatified as a confessor by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and was canonized by
Pope John Paul II on
October 10 1982 in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek. Upon canonization, the Pope declared St. Maximilian Kolbe not a confessor, but a martyr.
Although the canonization of St. Maximilan Kolbe is uncontroversial, his recognition as a martyr is, given that a
Christian martyr is one who is killed in
odium Fidei, and Kolbe wasn't assassinated strictly out of hatred for the Faith.
He is one of ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of
Westminster Abbey,
London.
After his canonization St. Maximilian Kolbe's feast day was included in the General Roman Calendar used by the ordinary form of the
roman rite of the Catholic Liturgy.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Maximilian Kolbe'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://maximilian_kolbe.totallyexplained.com">Maximilian Kolbe Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
