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Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

This website has been placed under the powerful protection and special patronage of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, and Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.  He has been chosen because he is the patron Saint of the Mass Media, which he is because he always sought to use the latest and most up to date means of technology and communication to spread devotion to the Immaculata and thus ultimately to her Divine Son.  This is the goal and aim of this website and thus Kolbe is the perfect patron to advance the Kingdom of Christ through the Internet so that the Hearts of Jesus and Mary may reign over the hearts of all Men and Women.

“Jesus honored Mary before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Him, nor even near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her. This is the lot of Angels and of men.” -Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

“Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.” -Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

The Feast of Saint Maximilian appears most fittingly in the liturgical cycle on the Vigil of the glorious Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, for it was on that very day in 1941 that he was put to death by an injection of carbolic acid.  The Nazis had to resort to this form of execution because he had already survived in the starvation bunker without food or water for two weeks, and all the while he had lead the other inmates of the bunker in singing hymns to Jesus and Mary.  So powerful was the presence of God with this holy man that the guards were afraid of him and would keep their distance when entering to remove the dead bodies each day.  This was the famous and terrible Auschwitz, and these men had been randomly selected to die because one prisoner had escaped the camp.  Saint Maximilian, however, was not one chosen but hearing the pleading of the one of the chose men to spare his life for the sake of his wife and children he volunteered to take his place and the guards were all too eager to kill this priest whom they hated so much.

The glorious triumph of this saint in his holy death ought to be enough to cause anyone to love this man, but there is so much more that could be said of him.  He was from a devout Catholic family and after the death of his father his mother would become a cloistered nun and both he and his brother would become religious priests.  It was into the order of Conventual Franciscans that young Raymond Kolbe entered to set about the work of becoming a saint.

Three saints have done more to spread authentic devotion to Mary in modern times than all the rest combined: Saint Louis Marie de Montfort, Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, and Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe.  And Montfort and Kolbe have the special distinction of being the two greatest promoters and now the special patrons of a total consecration to Jesus through Mary.  Montfort’s consecration was very much focused on the interior aspect of this greatest of all devotions, while Kolbe’s consecration was of a more active nature and set out to put into practice in a very concrete way the inner devotion developed through the Montfort method.  We see by this a beautiful complimenting of the work of these two saints and with their synthesis we have the most powerful and important of all devotions, and a perfect mode of life for every person regardless of state in life.

Just a year before being ordained a priest, while still a seminarian in Rome, Kolbe conceived of an idea that would quickly come to fruition by the grace of God and the intercession of the ever Blessed Virgin Mary.  Just three days after the great Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on October 13th 1917, in a small room in Rome seven young Franciscan Seminarians lead by Fra Maximilian founded the Militia of the Immaculata.  This was a group of spiritual knights who were to use prayer and not arms to fight evil in the world.  It promoted a form of Marian Consecration and above all the Holy Rosary and the Miraculous Medal.  It was founded in response to the terrible rioting of the Freemasons in Saint Peters Square, which included burning the Pope in effigy before his eyes and a banner that read: “Satan will rule the Vatican, and Pope will be his slave”, during the 200th Anniversary “celebrations” of the founding of the Grand Lodge.  Here are the words of Fra Maximilian:

“In the face of such attacks of the enemies of the Church of God, are we to remain inactive?  Is that all we can do—complain and cry?  No! Every one of us has a holy obligation to personally hurl back the assaults of the foe.”

“These men without God find themselves in a tragic situation.  Such implacable hatred for the Church and the ambassadors of Christ on earth is not in the power of individual persons, but of a systematic activity stemming in the final analysis from Freemasonry.  In particular, it aims to destroy the Catholic religion.  Their deceits have been spread throughout the world, in different disguises.  But with the same goal – religious indifference and weakening of moral forces, according to their basic principle—‘We will conquer the Catholic Church not by argumentation, but rather with moral corruption.’”

 

“Modern times are dominated by Satan and will be more so in the future.  The conflicts with hell cannot be engaged by men, even the most clever.  The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan.”

Earlier in February of 1917 Russia had undergone the terrible Communist revolution, and we must understand the close connection and the united aims of this group and Freemasonry.  What Saint Maximilian was fighting against was the very thing that our Lady had warned the children at Fatima about in the second secret about the “errors of Russia” being spread throughout the world.  And both of these groups in their aims and ideology were most clearly explained by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi as they both fall under the umbrella of the “synthesis of all heresies”, Modernism.  Thus Saint Maximilian, his Militia of the Immaculata, and the total Consecration to Jesus through Mary that he promoted (and Saint Louis before him, and which has been practiced by every Pope since Blessed Pope Pius IX) are indispensible in today’s day and age.

Though Saint Maximilian is not in the traditional calendar of the Roman rite the Mass that is celebrated on August 14th in the Extraordinary form is still most fitting for this great Marian Saint, and was after all the Mass he celebrated every year of his priesthood on this day.  The concluding verses from the epistle reading are from Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) Chapter 24 and have always been applied to our Lady by the Fathers of the Church:

“He that hearkeneth to me, shall not be confounded: and they that work by me, shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting.”

Very few Saints in all of history of done more to explain our Lady, to work by her, and who loved her so deeply and tenderly and sought always to instill this same love in others.  In the very last words the saint ever wrote before he was arrested and carried off to Auschwitz (on 17 February 1941) we see his undying love for our Lady:

“The Immaculata, grafted into the Love of the Blessed trinity, becomes from the first moment of her existence and forever after the ‘complement of the Blessed Trinity.’ In the Holy Spirit’s union with Mary we observe more than the love of two beings; in there is all the love of the Blessed trinity; in the other, all of creation’s love. So it is that in this union Heaven and earth are joined; all of Heaven with the earth, the totality of eternal love with the totality of created love. It is truly the summit of love. At Lourdes, she did not say that she was conceived immaculately, but as St. Bernadette repeated it, ‘Que soy era immaculata councepiou:’ ‘I am the Immaculate Conception.’”

One other major work that our Saint performed as part of his Militia of the Immaculata was his creation of these “Towns of the Immaculate”.  The first was in his native Poland and was the largest and where he spent most of his time.  The third is in Libertyville Illinois, but which was only ever a dream in the saints mind while he lived.  The second Marytown he was able to personally found and which was right next to Nagasaki Japan up on the mountainside.  And his holiness remained there with the place and instilled in the Friars living there a great devotion to our Lady and our Lord and produced many vocations.  And so it was a most terrible tragedy on August 9th 1945 when the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.  This city was a Catholic center in Japan and more than ten thousands Catholics were killed by this bomb.  But just as had happened with the Jesuit house in Hiroshima there was an incredible miracle in this religious house established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe. In fact Kolbe had placed it in a location specifically indicated to him by our Lord.  This Friary was also completely unharmed by this bomb, and just as with the Jesuits of Hiroshima the Franciscans of Nagasaki attributed their deliverance to the fact that they lived the message of Fatima as a community.

Surely those who are most devoted to our Lady will be placed by her closest to her Son in the highest thrones.  In the Franciscan tradition it is believed that Saint Francis of Assisi was granted the privilege of taking the throne left vacant by Lucifer himself, which would be the highest and greatest of all the thrones after our Lady and Saint Joseph’s next to our Lord.  And, indeed there are few Saints who were more devoted to our Lady in the whole history of the Church than this great Saint, who entrusted the whole order to her care on his death bed.  Saint Louis Marie de Montfort even speaks about the fact that:

“Mary has authority over the angels and the blessed in heaven. As a reward for her great humility, God gave her the power and the mission of assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the apostate angels who fell away through pride.” (True Devotion, #28)

It is said that Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe and Saint Padre Pio are the greatest and truest sons of Saint Francis of modern times and indeed they were two of the most perfect imitators of their holy father in the faith ever, and both were most perefect imitators of Saint Francis in their great and deep love for our Lady.

Now what is the legacy of our Saint?  The Militia of the Immaculata of course is around still, but the true legacy of our Saint is found in the men and women who really are his true spiritual children: the Franciscans of the Immaculate.  This is a wonderful community founded in the late 1960’s at the behest of Saint Padre Pio himself and which is a perfect reflection of the spirituality and spirit of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.  They actually take a fourth vow of total consecration to Jesus through Mary and use every means of modern technology to spread the Gospel and devotion to Mary just as Saint Maximilian did in his own day.  God bless them and keep them and may they flourish!

Saint Maximilian’s Prayer of Total Consecration to the Immaculata

Immaculata, 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, N…, a repentant 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 most pleases you.

If it pleases you, use all that I am and have without reserve, wholly to accomplish what was said of you: “She will crush your head,” and, “You alone have destroyed all heresies in the world.” Let me be a fit instrument in your immaculate and 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 growth in holiness, 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 sacred Virgin.

R. Give me strength against your enemies.

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