Rev. Fr. Augustine Vallooran V.C.
The
worst circumstances often churn out the finest humans. It is in the darkest
night that the glory of the galaxy is unveiled. It is from the furnace that
pure gold is drawn. And Scripture affirms, “So
are worthy men proved in the furnace of humiliation.” (Sirach 2:5)
“The Lord Guides
the Humble” (Psalm 25:9)
One of
the darkest hours in human history and memory is the Holocaust where six
million were wiped out by the Nazi regime in the most inhuman cruel manner. The
enduring terror and sorrow of Auschwitz during the World War II however, revealed
to the world the highest nobility of spirit that man can achieve through the
person of Maximilian Kolbe whom the Church honours as a saint and martyr. This
in short is the witness to godliness offered by St. Maximilian Kolbe, a hero of
our modern times. As St. Pope John Paul II said, “Maximilian did not die but gave his life for
his brother.” In doing so he reflected most powerfully the salvific
self-offering our Lord Jesus made for humankind. “Greater
love has no man than this, that he lays his life down for his friends.” (John 15:13)
St. Maximilian Kolbe was born in
humble circumstances to a poor weaver on 8 January 1894 in Poland. His
baptismal name was Raymond. As a child, he seems to have been very mischievous.
On one occasion his mother scolded him and expressed her concern as to what
would become of him. This question stirred something within the child and led
to a spiritual experience that brought about a radical change in his behaviour.
He explains
this transformation as the outcome of a vision he had of Mother Mary. He saw
the mother of God and asked her what would become of him in the future. She
held out to him two crowns, one white and the other red. She asked him whether
he was willing to accept either of these crowns – the white one was a challenge
for him to persevere in purity or the red crown was an offer of martyrdom. He chose
to accept both! With this experience, he gained a deep conviction that he was headed
to a heavenly destination gained by the very offering of his life through
martyrdom. This conviction impelled him to make bold decisions in life.
The
journey of his life witnessed one more conversion in its course. As a student,
he excelled in mathematics and physics - subjects essential for military
studies. His teachers predicted a brilliant future for him. He also had a
passionate interest in military affairs. His deeply patriotic trend of thinking
led him to the idea that he should become a soldier to save his motherland
Poland from slavery. The initial longing to become a priest died out as his
fiery patriotism directed him towards a military career. This did not in any way
reduce his commitment to prayer and to cherishing the heavenly experience of
his childhood. In time as light clarifies details, the hours of prayer revealed
to him that the call of his life was to live for the highest mission which is
the Love of God. He laid down his dreams of becoming a soldier for his country
to become a priest of God. As time revealed he remained a passionate warrior
all his lifetime. Only that this fighter attitude took a spiritual orientation.
He realised the world was bigger than Poland and that there were more crushing
slaveries than earthly ones that man was enduring in this world. This
revelation led him to found the Crusade of Mary Immaculate called ‘Militia Immaculata’ with six other
companions on 16 October 1917.
“Behold,
Thy Mother” (John 19:27)
His
total commitment to Jesus with Mother Mary made him so free of worldly
dispersions that he was focused only to live for God. We are told that day
after day he came to be “mad with love for the Immaculate.” This madness of
love for purity and the graces of heaven emboldened him to choose the path of
great sacrifices for the Lord. He lived out this madness of love until it
culminated in his martyrdom at the Auschwitz death camp. He became a martyr not
merely by one moment of heroic choice with the final act of charity where he
took the place of another inmate in the starvation bunker - but in every
decision and activity of his life, he persevered and practised a daily
martyrdom for love for God and the Immaculate.
Kolbe
reveals how precious was the faithful guidance of the Mother of God in drawing
him to a life for Jesus. He writes “I felt that that the Immaculate was drawing
me to herself more and more closely and I used to pray to her very fervently
all the time.” His strong spirituality would gain great following. He
founded the first Monastery of the Immaculate in Poland by name Niepokalanow.
It
took him great toil, stress and suffering for the establishment of this
monastery. It is important to note that he took up this entire struggle in
spite of his poor health. Towards the end of his studies in Rome, he suffered
his first bout of tuberculosis and he became quite ill, often coughing up
blood. Throughout the rest of his life, he was dogged by poor health but never
complained - looking at every discomfort as a precious offering he could make
towards his heavenly mission. The doctors had pronounced him incurable; one
lung had collapsed and the other was damaged. It was with this ill-health that
he built up the monastery of Niepokalanow. At first it consisted of a few
shacks with tar paper roof. Nothing could stop it from flourishing. Within a few
years, there were more than one hundred seminarians and the numbers were still
growing. Before long, it became the largest friary in the world housing seven
hundred and sixty two inhabitants! The priests in parishes all over the country
reported a tremendous upsurge of faith which was attributed to the literature
emerging from the Friary.
“You Will Be My Witnesses To The Ends Of The Earth” (Acts 1:8)
Fr.
Maximilian Kolbe’s fighter attitude would not let him rest content in his
native land Poland. He undertook a long journey in 1930 to Japan and came to
reside in Nagasaki. The legendary experience of Maximilian in Nagasaki was nothing
less than a testimony to the power of daily martyrdom. His only shelter was a
wretched hut whose walls and roof were caving in. They slept on the straw and
their tables were planks of wood. He knew not a word of Japanese and he had no
money. In short all the odds were against him. Yet a year later he would inaugurate
a monastery there by name ‘The Garden of
the Immaculate’! It was built on the slopes of a mountain which was much
criticised. The choice of this site in the suburbs was because of poverty but
it proved a great blessing because in 1945 when the atom bomb razed Nagasaki to
the ground, the monastery remained shielded from all the effects simply because
of its location. Today it forms the centre of the Franciscan Province in Japan.
When
Kolbe left Japan on his way back to Poland, he stopped by Kerala and
established a printing press to spread the word of God. He left a trail of
evangelistic work.
His
tireless hard work for the love of God was not limited to establishing
monasteries. In his era, he was prophetic in the approach to using media for reaching
the masses with the Good News of Jesus. When he returned to Poland in 1919, he
started a monthly journal by name ‘Knight
of the Immaculate’. Its aim was as he explained “to illuminate the truth
and show the true way to happiness.” As there were no funds, he started
printing 5000 copies. In a few years time, the circulation swelled to one
million copies! He soon started a daily newspaper ‘Maly Dziennik’. The media ministry of Maximilian became so
effective that the Catholic Church in Poland was deeply influenced. He also
gained a radio licence to step up the fervour of faith among the masses.
“Do
Not Be Surprised of the Trial By Fire” (I Peter 4:12)
When
Poland was overrun by the Nazi forces of Germany in 1939, Kolbe was arrested
under general suspicion. At what should have been a gloomy moment he encouraged
his confreres - “Courage
my sons! Don’t you see that we are living on a mission? They pay our fare in
the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in
order to win as many souls as possible.” Indeed he had embarked on
his last mission.
He was
sent to the work camp in Auschwitz. Martyrdom as a way of life continued. He
and other priests arrested with him were made to carry heavy blocks of stone
for the building of a crematorium wall. Their work was overseen by a dreaded ex-criminal
called ‘Bloody Krott’ who was known to despise priests. Krott came to single
out Kolbe for brutal treatment. Despite the awful conditions and the cruel
treatment in Auschwitz, it is reported that Kolbe kept deep faith and
equanimity. On one occasion, Krott compelled Kolbe to carry the heaviest planks
until he collapsed. He then beat Kolbe brutally and left him in the mud
thinking he was dead. The fellow prisoners secretly took him to the camp
dispensary where he recovered.
A
marked characteristic about him was his consistent selflessness, always more
concerned for the needs of his fellow prisoners - often sharing his meagre
rations with them. He sent a letter from the camp to his mother: ‘Dear Mama, at
the end of the month of May I was transferred to the camp of Auschwitz.
Everything is going well with me. Be peaceful about me and about my health because
the good God is everywhere and provides for everything with love. It would be
well that you do not write to me until you will have received other news from
me because I do not know how long I will stay here. Hearty greetings and
kisses, affectionately. Raymond.’
This
was the last letter of Kolbe from the camp and he would not live very long
after that. It was shortly after this that the final tribulation was to set in.
“Blessed Are They Who Are Persecuted For The Sake Of
Righteousness” (Matthew 5:10)
Three
prisoners escaped from the Auschwitz camp. The camp leader vented his fury by
ordering ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker. One of the ten,
was a certain Franciszek Gajowniczek. Struck by the harsh summons to death, he
cried aloud in deep grief, “My wife, my children.” At this tragic scene Kolbe stepped
forward, volunteering to take his place. The Nazi commander seeing a prisoner
step out of line grunted, “What does this Polish pig want?” Kolbe pointed to
the condemned Franciszek and fearlessly explained, “I’m a Catholic priest from
Poland; I would like to take his place because he has a wife and children.”
Rather shocked the commander ordered the change. Franciszek later said, “I
could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what
was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone
else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me – a stranger. Is this
some dream?”
Kolbe
was led away with the other nine to the underground bunker where they were to
be starved to death. The dark chambers of death were illumined throughout with
prayer. Kolbe throughout the hours would lead the men in prayer, encouraging
them to put their trust in God. Whenever the guards checked the cell, Kolbe
would be seen kneeling in the middle and leading the others in singing hymns to
God. As they were diminishing in their physical strength, the prayers continued
as frail whispers. One by one the inmates of the starvation chambers fell to
the ground lying on the floor. Kolbe remained kneeling as he looked cheerfully
in the face of the prison guards.
Bruno Borgowiec,
a Polish prisoner who had the duty of overseeing these prisoners later
testified, “Fr. Kolbe never asked for anything and did not complain. Rather he
gave courage to others, encouraging them and praying with them.”
Falling
to the ground all of them died of dehydration and starvation. Only Kolbe
survived and in order to empty the bunker they had to execute him with the
administration of a lethal injection. Those who witnessed this say he calmly
accepted death with his arms lifted up. His life mission on this earth was accomplished
by his faithful response to live and die as a martyr. Kolbe once said, “Every man has an
aim in life. For most men it is to return home to their families. For my part I
give my life for the good of all men.” The spirit of martyrdom that
animated Kolbe all through his life was indeed crowned in the final act of
total giving.
Fr.
Zygmunt Rusczak a fellow prisoner recollects later, “Each time I saw Fr. Kolbe
in the courtyard, I felt within myself an extraordinary effusion of his
goodness. Although he wore the same ragged clothes as the rest of us, with the
same tin can hanging from his belt, one forgot this wretched exterior and was
conscious only of the charm of his inspired countenance and of his radiant
holiness.” This divine charm that expressed itself in the heroic self sacrifice
was recognised officially by the canonisation of Kolbe in 1971.
Jerzy
Bielecki, a Polish leader and Holocaust survivor, declared that “Fr. Kolbe’s
death was a shock and yet was filled with hope bringing new life and strength.
It was like a powerful shaft of life in the darkness of the camp.” His life and
death was a sharing in the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. As St. Paul, “If we have died with Him we shall also live with Him.”
(2 Timothy 2:11). The death of Jesus was not the end of His life and
mission but the culmination of it. The life of Kolbe that started as a
martyrdom in daily sacrifices culminated in the ultimate offering through his
death. The rays of the glory of the Resurrection were spreading all through his
life and activity. In the desert of hatred in Auschwitz he sowed love and
gentleness. The Polish bishops wrote “The life and death of this one man alone
can be the proof and witness of the fact that the love of God can overcome the greatest
hatred, the greatest injustice and even death itself.” For all of us who are
living and struggling to cast out the evil in our midst, Kolbe is a great hero
showing us the way.
Let
Us Pray
Heavenly Father,
we thank You for giving us martyrs who brilliantly point out to us the glory
beyond this earth. We thank You for St. Maximilian Kolbe and every such prophet
who in the hours of deepest darkness revealed to us that the Light of Heaven
cannot be quenched or diminished by the deepest darkness. In the moments of our
struggles, let us never lose heart. May we be able to find inspiration in Your
Ever Faithful Presence. Your Son has promised us that He would never leave us
alone. Let His Light shine upon us in the darkest moments of our life that we
may be witnesses of hope.
Amen.
