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Theology of the Heart - Church Teachings on the Saints |
The
Beatification
of Fr.
Maximilian
Maria Kolbe
Homily of
Pope Paul VI
October
17, 1971
Maximilian Kolbe Blessed! What does this mean? It means that the
Church recognizes in him an exceptional figure, a man in whom God's
grace and the soul have so interacted as to produce a stupendous
life. Anyone who observes it closely discovers this symbiosis of a
dual operating principle, the divine and the human. One is
mysterious, the other can be experienced; One is transcendent but
interior, the other natural but complex, and expanded to the point
of reaching that extraordinary image of moral and spiritual
greatness that we call holiness; that is, perfection reached on the
religious parameter, which as we know, soars towards the infinite
heights of the Absolute. 'Blessed,' therefore, means worthy of that
veneration permitted by the Church in certain places and among
certain groups, a veneration that implies admiration of the one who
is their object because of some unusual and magnificent reflection
of the Sanctifying Spirit in him. It means 'saved and glorious.' It
means 'citizen of heaven' with all the peculiar signs of a citizen
of earth; it means 'brother and friend' whom we know is still ours,
more so than ever, in fact, because he is identified as an active
member of the Communion of Saints, which is the Mystical Body of
Christ, the Church, living both in time and in eternity. It means,
therefore, 'advocate and protector' in the kingdom of love, together
with Christ "who is always able to save those who approach God
through him, since he forever lives to make intercession for them"
(Heb. 7,25: cf.Rom. 8,34). Finally, it means 'exemplary specimen' a
type of man to whom we can conform our way of life, since he, the
Blessed, is recognized as having the apostle Paul's privilege of
being able to say to the Christian people "I beg you then, be
imitators of me" (I Cor. 4, 16).
Life of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe
This is what we can think of Maximilian Kolbe, the new Blessed, from
today onwards. But who is Maximilian Kolbe? We know him well! He is
so close to our generation and so imbued with the actual life and
experiences of our times that everything is known about him. Rarely
does a beatification process deal with such a wealth of documents.
Just for the sake of our modern passion for historical truth, we
include almost as an epigraph, the biographical sketch of Father
Kolbe written by one of the most assiduous of the scholars devoted
to him.
Fr. Maximilian Kolbe was born in Zdunska Wola near Lodz on January
8, 1894. In 1907 he entered the Seminary of the Franciscan
Conventuals. He was sent to Rome to continue his ecclesiastical
studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Seraphicum of
his Order. When still a student, he founded a movement, the Militia
Immaculatae. Ordained a priest on April 28,1918, he returned to
Poland and began his Marian apostolate, particularly with the
monthly publication Rycerz Niepokalanej (The Knight of the
Immaculata), which reached a press run of one million copies in
1938. In 1927 he founded Niepokalanow (City of the Immaculata), a
center of religious life and of various forms of apostolate. In 1930
he left for Japan where he founded another similar institution.
Returning to Poland permanently, he dedicated himself wholly to his
work with various religious publications. The Second World War found
him at the head of the most imposing publishing complex in Poland.
On September 19, 1939 he was arrested by the Gestapo, who deported
him to Lamsdorf, Germany, then temporarily to the concentration camp
at Amtitz. Released on December 8, 1939, he returned to Niepokalanow,
resuming his interrupted activity. Arrested again in 1941, he was
put into Pawiak Prison in Warsaw, and then deported to the
concentration camp at Oswiecim (Auschwitz). Having offered his life
for an unknown man condemned to death, as a reprisal for the escape
of a prisoner from their block, he was sentenced to a starvation
bunker. He prepared his co victims for death, and on August 14,
1941, on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption, he was finished off
with an injection of phenol. His body was cremated.
But in a ceremony such as this, the biographical data, in a way,
dissolve in the dazzling splendor of the principle lines of the many
faceted figure of the new Blessed. Let us fix gaze for a moment on
these lines which characterize him and entrust him to our memories.
Secret of Kolbe's Sanctity Love and Devotion to Mary
Maximilian Kolbe was an apostle of the formal religious veneration
of the Blessed Virgin, seen in her first, original privileged
splendor, as she defined herself at Lourdes: the Immaculate
Conception. It is impossible to separate the name, the activity and
the mission of Blessed Kolbe from that of Mary Immaculate. It was he
who instituted the Militia Mariae Immaculatae here in Rome, even
before he was ordained a priest, on October 16, 1917. We can
commemorate its anniversary today.
It is well known how the humble and meek Franciscan with incredible
audacity and extraordinary organizational genius developed the
initiative and spread devotion to the Mother of Christ, contemplated
as "clothed with the sun" (cf. Rev. 12, 1). This devotion was the
focal point of his spirituality, his apostolate and his theology.
Let no hesitation restrain our admiration and commitment to all that
our new Blessed had left us as a heritage and an example, as if we
too were distrustful of such and exaltation of Mary in view of two
other theological movements, the Christological and ecclesiological,
which seem to compete today with the Mariological. On the contrary,
there is no competition, for in Father Kolbe's Mariology, Christ
holds not only the first place but the only necessary and sufficient
place in the economy of salvation. His love of the Church and its
salvational mission was never forgotten either in his doctrinal
outlook or in his apostolic aim. On the contrary, it is precisely
from our Lady's complementary, subordinate role in regard to
Christ's universal, saving design for man that she derives all of
her prerogatives and greatness.
How well we know it! And Kolbe, in accord with the whole of Catholic
doctrine, the whole liturgy and the entire theology of the interior
life, sees Mary included in God's plan of salvation as the "term
fixed by eternal counsel," as the woman filled with grace, as the
Seat of Wisdom, as the woman destined from eternity to be the Mother
of Christ, as the Queen of the Messianic Kingdom, and at the same
time as the Handmaid of the Lord, chosen to participate in the
Redemptive Act as Mother of the God Man, our Saviour. "Mary is the
one through whose intercession men reach Jesus and the one through
whom Jesus reaches men" (L. Bouver: Le trone de la Sagesse;
p. 69).
Therefore our Blessed is not to be reproved, nor the Church with
him, because of their enthusiam for the formal religious veneration
of the Mother of God. This veneration with its rites and practices
will never fully achieve the level it merits, nor the benefits it
can bring precisely because of the mystery that unites her to
Christ, and which finds fascinating documentation in the New
Testament. The result will never be a "Mariolatry," just as the seen
will never be darkened by the moon; nor will the mission of
salvation specifically entrusted to the ministry of the Church ever
be distorted if the latter honors in Mary an exceptional Daughter
and a Spiritual Mother. The characteristic aspect, if you like, and
the original quality of Blessed Kolbe's devotion, of his
"hyperdulia" to Mary, is the importance he attributes to it with
regard to the present needs of the Church, the efficacy of her
prophecy about the glory of the Lord and the vindication of the
humble, the power of her intercession, the splendor of her
exemplariness, the presence of her maternal charity. The Council
confirmed us in these certainties, and now from heaven Father Kolbe
is teaching us and helping us to meditate upon them and live them.
This Marian profile of our new Blessed places him among the great
saints and seers who have understood, venerated and sung the mystery
of Mary.
The Heroic Death of Fr. Maximilian
Next let us consider the tragic and sublime conclusion of Maximilian
Kolbe's innocent and apostolic life. It is mainly to this that we
owe the glorification of the meek humble, hard working religious,
exemplary follower of St. Francis and knight in love with Mary
Immaculate that the Church celebrates today. The circumstances of
his departure from this life are so horrible and harrowing that we
would prefer not to speak of them, and never to contemplate them
again, in order not to see the depths of inhuman degradation to
which the abuse of power can lead, an abuse which seeks to make a
pedestal of grandeur and glory from the impassive cruelty it
inflicts upon helpless beings that it has degraded to the rank of
slaves and doomed to extermination. There were millions of these
victims sacrificed to the pride of force and the madness of racism.
Nevertheless it is necessary to scan this dark picture again in
order to pick out, here and there, the gleams of surviving humanity.
Alas, history cannot forget these frightful and tragic pages. And so
it cannot but fix its horrified gaze on the luminous points that
reveal, but at the same time overcome, their inconceivable darkness.
One of these points, perhaps the one glowing most brightly, is the
calm, drained figure of Maximilian Kolbe. A serene hero, always
pious and sustained by a paradoxical, yet reasonable confidence. His
name will remain among the great; it will reveal what reserves of
moral values lay among those unhappy masses, petrified by horror and
despair.
Over this immense vestibule of death hovers a divine and
imperishable word of life, that of Jesus revealing the secret of
innocent suffering: to be the expiation, the victim, the burnt
sacrifice and, above all, to be love for others. "There is no
greater love than this; to lay down one's life for one's friends"
(Jn. 15:13). Jesus was speaking of himself in the imminence of his
sacrifice for the salvation of men. Men are all friends of Jesus, if
they at least listen to his words. Father Kolbe fulfilled his maxim
of redeeming love in the fatal concentration camp of Oswiecim. And
this by a double title.
Kolbe Perfect Exemplar of Priesthood
Who among us does not recall the incomparable episode? "I am a
Catholic priest," he said, offering his own life unto death and what
a death! to save the life of an unknown companion sentenced to the
starvation bunker in blind reprisal. What a magnificent moment! His
offer was accepted. It came from a heart trained to give itself. It
was as natural and spontaneous as if it were a logical consequence
of his priesthood. Is not a priest a "second Christ?" Was not Christ
the Priest, the redeeming victim of mankind? What a glory it is for
us priests, and what a lesson, to find in Blessed Maximilian such a
splendid exemplification of our consecration and of our mission!
What a warning he addresses to us in this hour of uncertainty, when
at times human nature would like to assert its rights to the
detriment of our supernatural vication to follow Christ through the
total gift of ourselves to him! What a consolation it must be for
that close knit, faithful legion, so beloved and noble, of good
priests and religious who, filled with the legitimate and
praiseworthy desire to transcend personal mediocrity and social
frustration, understand their mission just as he did. "I am a
Catholic priest, and for this reason I offer my life to save those
of others." Such would seem to be the commission which the new
Blessed leaves especially to us, ministers of God's Church, and in
some way to all in the Church who accept the Spirit.
The Apostle of Unity
And to this priestly title we can add another, one which shows that
Blessed Maximilian's sacrifice was motivated by a friendship: he was
a Pole. As a Pole he was condemned to that unhappy concentration
camp, and as a Pole he was willing to give up his life for that of a
fellow countryman, Francis Gajowniczeck. How many thoughts come to
our minds at the memory of this human, social and ethnical aspect of
the voluntary death of Maximilian Kolbe, a son of noble Catholic
Poland! This nation's historic destiny of suffering seems to
document, in this typical and heroic case, the centuries old
vocation of the Polish people to find in its shard passion a single,
united conscience; a knightly mission for freedom achieved in the
pride of the spontaneous sacrifices of its sons and daughter, and
their readiness to give themselves for one another and to overcome
their vivacity in invincible concord; and indelible Catholic
character which makes of it a living and suffering member of the
universal Church; a firm conviction that the secret of its renascent
prosperity lies in the miraculous but tear stained protection of the
Blessed Virgin. These are the iridescent rays of light issuing from
the new Polish martyr: they show us the true visage of his country
and lead us to ask Blessed Maximilian, its emblematic hero, for
firmness in faith, ardor in charity, prosperity and peace for all
his people. The Church and the whole world will rejoice over it
together! Amen.
Go to Main Page on St. Maximilian Kolbe
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
