The Catholic Church honors the heroic life of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe on August 14.
Imagine, you are arrested by certain political
authorities and sent to a death prison because of you have sharply criticized
the political authorities on the moral ground, out of your conscience, rooted
in your Christian faith. Then, how would you respond to this? Would you resist
the arrest by force, though you know you may be shot? Or would you rather surrender
yourself to the evil hands of the authority? And in the death prison, how do
you see yourself spending days until you are called for an execution?
This is a fitting reflection on the memorial feast of
a St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who died in
the Auschwitz concentration camp on August 14, 1941.
You may wonder how this Polish Catholic priest ended
up dying in the Nazi death camp, if you are not familiar with him.
Maximilian was arrested on February 17, 1941, by the
Nazi Gestapo and sent to the Auschwitz death camp because of his anti-Nazi
publications and sheltering Jews in his monastery in the Nazi-occupied Poland. In
Auschwitz, he was reduced to his prisoner number, 16670.
Because his father was German, Maximilian was offered
to acknowledge his rights equal to a German citizen, he refused to sign Deutsche
Volksliste, the document that guaranteed the equal right to a German citizen. For
him, it made no sense to save his own life because of his “privilege” to have a
German father, when his father’s country at that time occupied his country,
Poland, and exterminate Jews and anyone who were deemed as “anti-Nazi”. His
conscience did not allow that.
It was said that the only way to get out of the Auschwitz
concentration camp was through one of the chimneys of the crematoriums that
burned corpses of executed “prisoners”. And their “crimes” to be sent to this
death camp to be killed by the Nazi? Being a Jew or being anti-Nazi or being
deemed as “unworthy to live” by the Nazi authorities. Those who tried to escape
were caught and executed. However, there were some “prisoners” managed to
escape and reported what had been taking place in the camp.
When Maximilian was in Auschwitz, her was put to a
forced hard labor, carrying heavy rocks and bricks to build more crematoriums.
He was often singled out by an evil supervisor, subjected beatings. But
Maximian bore such abuses with calmness as to reflect these words of Christ
from his Sermon on the Mount:
You have heard that it was said, “An eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, offer no resistance to
one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other
one to him as well (Matthew 5:38-39).
Can you submit yourself to such abusive injustice without resisting or fighting back, as Christ commands us with the above words of his, as St. Maximilian Kolbe did in Auschwitz?
While Maximilian continued to spend his days for
forced hard labor, the deputy commander ordered to send ten prisoners to a
starvation chamber, because of an allegation that three “prisoners” escaped. So,
10 “prisoners” were selected to be condemned as a “punishment” for the escape.
Then, one of them cried out for his wife and children. In response to this, Maximilian
was moved with his compassion for this crying man and approached a Nazi
commander and said, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to
take his place because he has a wife and children.” And the Nazi commander accepted Maximilian’s
offer of his life in place for the crying condemned “prisoner”. Thus, he volunteered to die for his fellow “prisoner”,
also, for this “prisoner’s” wife and children. And while he was in the
starvation chamber, Maximilian Kolbe continued to console those who were condemned
to death by ways of starvation with him, until his death.
The Church honors St. Maximilian Kolbe as an exemplary
Saint to embody these words of Christ:
No one has greater love than this, to lay
down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
It is Jesus, the Christ, who exemplified this as the
Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11). And in
Auschwitz, it was St. Maximilian Kolbe, who imitated Christ to save his fellow “prisoner”,
who was “condemned”.
The “prisoner” condemned by the Nazi but saved by the greatest
love of St. Maximilian Kolbe survived in Auschwitz until the liberation. And he
testified for him:
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? I was put back into my place
without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I
owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this.
The First Reading (Wisdom 3:1-9) is fitting to honor a
life of this martyred Saint, St, Maximilian Kolbe, as this reading reminds that
the souls of the righteous are unharmed because they are kept in God’s hands,
even though they go through martyrs’ death. Only those who are foolish in the
eyes of God regard these Saints as dead. This reading also teaches us that
those heroic martyred Saints were able to bear death and great suffering preceding
to it because they trust in God’s providential hands of their souls. Certainly,
there is no question about the steadfastness of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s faith.
This is why he remained calm in submitting himself to the evil hands’ brutal
abuse and offering his life as a redemptive sacrifice for a “condemned” fellow “prisoner”.
The optional First Reading (1 John 3:14-18) calls us
to love one another, as exemplified by Christ. And this reading also gives a
reason why we are called to live a life of love of Christ. The reason is that
it was Christ himself who laid his life to save us. So, as those who are saved
by his sacrifice, we are to propagate his love by observing his new commandment
of loving one another as he had (John 10:34) and even to lay down our lives to
save others, as exemplified by St. Maximilian Kolbe.
As reminded by the Gospel Reading to honor the heroic
life of sacrificial love of St. Maximilian Kolbe (John 15:12-16), Christ has
chosen us to bear fruits of agape, selfless love for others. And those
who take Christ’s new commandment to love one another, to the level of laying
down one’s life for another person bears fruits of love so abundantly, as with
the case of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s way to fight evil was not
take up arms against the Nazi. It was simply to imitate Christ, fighting evil
with love, as commanded by Christ. And God’s providential care has kept his
soul unharmed from the evil.
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