St. Maximilian, born Raymond Kolbe in Poland, Jan. 8, 1894. In 1910, he entered the Conventual Franciscan Order. He was sent to study in Rome where he was ordained a priest in 1918.
ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, PRIEST AND MARTYR
St. Maximilian, born Raymond Kolbe in Poland, Jan. 8, 1894.
In 1910, he entered the Conventual Franciscan Order. He was sent to study in
Rome where he was ordained a priest in 1918.
Filled with love for the Virgin, Father Maximilian returned to Poland in 1919 and began spreading his Militia of the Immaculata movement of Marian consecration (whose members are also called MIs), which he founded on October 16, 1917. In 1927, he established an evangelization center near Warsaw called Niepokalanow, the "City of the Immaculata." By 1939, the City had expanded from eighteen friars to an incredible 650, making it the largest Catholic religious house in the world.
To better
"win the world for
the Immaculata," the friars utilized the most modern printing and administrative
techniques. This enabled them to publish countless catechetical and devotional
tracts, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000 and a monthly magazine
with a circulation of over one million. Maximilian started a shortwave radio
station and planned to build a motion picture studio--he was a true
"apostle of
the mass media." He established a City of the Immaculata in Nagasaki, Japan, in
1930, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide.
Maximilian was a ground-breaking theologian. His insights into the Immaculate Conception anticipated the Marian theology of the Second Vatican Council and further developed the Church's understanding of Mary as "Mediatrix" of all the graces of the Trinity, and as "Advocate" for God's people.
In 1941, the Nazis imprisoned
Father Maximilian in the Auschwitz death camp. There he
offered his life for
another prisoner and was condemned to slow death in a starvation bunker. On
August 14, 1941, his impatient captors ended his life with a fatal injection. Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a
"martyr of charity" in 1982 and
proclaimed him the Patron of Our Suffering Century.
St. Maximilian Kolbe is also considered a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement and the chemically addicted.
Excerpts from Militia of the Immaculata
Patron:
Drug addiction; drug addicts; families; imprisoned people; journalists;
political prisoners; prisoners; pro-life movement.
Things to Do:
From the Catholic Culture library, read The Holy Spirit and Mary, an explanation of St. Maximillian's Marian theology and Maximillian Kolbe, Apostle of Mary by Fr. John Hardon.
Pray the........Liturgy of the Hours
Read more....Encylopedia - Biography St. Maximilian Kolbe
Read more....Brief Life Story St. Maximilian Kolbe
Read more....The Story of St. Kolbe's Life - KolbeNet
