Raymond Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894, in Zdunska-Wola, Poland. He was a lively and clever child, he felt drawn to follow Our Lord and His Mother. As a young man, he joined the Conventual Franciscan Friars and received the religious name Maximilian.
Kolbe's life was strongly influenced in 1906, when he was 12, by a vision of Our Lady. He later described this incident:
"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."
Ordained priest in 1918, Fr. Maximilian began his “press apostolate” missionary activity in Poland, In January 1922, Kolbe founded the monthly periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (Knight of the Immaculata), a devotional publication based on French Le Messager du Coeur de Jesus (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus).
From 1922 to 1926, he operated a religious publishing press in Grodno. As his activities grew in scope, in 1927 he founded a new Conventual Franciscan monastery at Niepokalanów near Warsaw. It became a major religious publishing centre. A junior seminary was opened there two years later.
Between 1930 and 1936, Kolbe undertook a series of missions to East Asia. He arrived first in Shanghai, China, but failed to gather a following there. Next he moved to Japan, where by 1931 he had founded a Franciscan monastery, Mugenzai no Sono, on the outskirts of Nagasaki. Suffering from tuberculosis, he returned in 1936 to Poland,and spent himself as the spiritual and apostolic development "front man" of Niepokalanów, which had become the most prominent Catholic publishing house in Poland. In 1938, he started a radio station at Niepokalanów, Radio Niepokalanów.
In 1939, when World War II broke out, Niepokalanów was bombed. After renovation it was used as a hospital and refuge for thousands of refugees, including many Jews.
Maximilian continued his press apostolate until February 17, 1941, when he was arrested and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, near Warsaw.
On May 28, 1941 he was permanently transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Maximilian, prisoner 16670, gave heroic witness to the Gospel. He continued his priestly ministry in Auschwitz, for which he was beaten and tortured. At the end of July 1941, a prisoner escaped from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander to pick ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place
After nearly two weeks of intense suffering, Kolbe was killed by an injection of carbolic acid on August 14, 1941, the eve of the Solemnity of the Assumption of Our Lady.
On October 10, 1982, St.John Paul II proclaimed him a Saint, a Martyr of Charity.
Franciszek Gajowniczek (above), the man Kolbe saved at Auschwitz, survived the Holocaust and was present as a guest at both the beatification and the canonization ceremonies.
Collect - St Maximillian Kolbe (14th August)
O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe
with a burning love for You and for Our Lady,
and with zeal for souls and love of neighbour;
graciously grant, through his intercession,
that, striving for your glory by eagerly serving others,
we may be conformed, even until death, to your Son.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
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