December 2006 Print


THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST THROUGH MARY AND ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE part II

Dominican Fr. Albert, O.P., participated in the annual traditional pilgrimage to the Polish national shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa. About 100 traditional Catholics set out from Warsaw to cover the 185-mile distance to Czestochowa in ten days. At the destination, a Mass in honor of the Immaculata, the holy Heroine of St. Maximilian Kolbe, was celebrated. In Part Two of the article, Fr. Albert concludes his thoughts about St. Maximilian and his love of Our Lady.

 

Maximilian Kolbe's ideal established, he is now ready to pass to action. He is ordained priest the 18th of April,1918, and the day after celebrates his first Mass at the Church Sant'Andrea delle Frate in Rome on the altar where the Blessed Virgin appeared to Ratisbonne. He goes back to Poland in July 1919, and in October he recruits already for the Militia Immaculatae six seminarians and their superior in the community of the Order at Cracov. On this occasion he writes in his journal:

Little Mother, I have no idea where this enterprise will lead, but deign to make use of me and of all of us as You wish for the greatest glory of God. I belong to You, my dear Immaculate Mother. You know how wretched I am, walking on the edge of the precipice, full of self-love.1 If Your immaculate hands cease to hold me, I will fall first of all into the most grievous sins, and afterwards into the depths of hell. But if You don't abandon me and if You lead me, unworthy as I am, I will certainly not fall and I will become a great saint.2

He obtains the blessing of his Provincial for his Militia and also the approbation and the help of the Cardinal Primate of Cracov. He immediately founds some Marian circles for the university students and for the soldiers in their barracks. In January of 1920 some conferences are held for the clergy and an inaugural meeting of the MI for the faithful in general.

However, this increasing activity suddenly comes to a stop when Fr. Kolbe is sent to a sanatorium outside of the city called Zakopane for treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis, a disease that he will have for the rest of his life. He had already had to stop giving courses at his friary because, a witness tells us, "he had to speak so softly in his classes because of his ailing lungs that he couldn't be understood by the students."3

He accepts with a perfect docility when his superiors send him to the sanatorium and forbid him to do anything with regard to his Militia. He writes to his brother, Br. Alphonsus (who was also a Franciscan Conventual priest):

As far as the (Militia) goes, we are in the hands of the Immaculate, so we must do everything that She desires, and this is made known to us through obedience....Let us be careful not to do anything more in the MI than what obedience permits, because otherwise we shall not be acting as Her instruments.4

May the Immaculate do as She wishes and everything She wishes, because I am Her property and at Her entire disposition.5

Nonetheless, he is far from being idle; he works efficaciously at the salvation of the souls of the other patients, as we see in another letter he writes to his brother:

We can thank the Immaculate because the greatest adversary at Zakopane has gone to confession. Also I baptized a Jewish university student who was in danger of death: this provoked the indignation of his mother and brothers afterwards, but post factum! Please ask the Heart of Jesus, through the Immaculate, to grant the conversion of all the students here. I have learned by personal experience that it is prayer alone that can obtain conversions.6

One of the episodes where he learned this is reported by a fellow religious at the Process of Beatification:

When Fr. Kolbe was at Zakopane he became acquainted with a certain intellectual. Every time he met him he said to him: "Sir, go to confession."

But the man always responded, "No way, Reverend Father. I respect you, but I won't go to confession; later, maybe."

Several weeks later this man, before leaving, came to say goodbye to Fr. Kolbe. The last words of Fr. Maximilian were "Sir, go to confession."

"Excuse me, Reverend Father, I have no time, I have to go to the station, I'm in a hurry."

"Accept then at least this miraculous medal."

Out of politeness he accepted the little medal and left immediately for the station. Meanwhile Fr. Maximilian fell to his knees and implored the Immaculate to convert this obstinate sinner. Wonder of wonders! After a moment, someone knocks at the door; this same man, who was in such a hurry to catch his train, enters. While he is still on the threshold he exclaims: "Father, please hear my confession."7

All this activity arouses the opposition of the atheistic authorities, but with the help of the Immaculate, victory is obtained. He writes to his brother:

Once the doctor in charge invited me into his office and, in accordance with the Director, requested that I no longer frequent the convalescent house Bratnia Pomoc. The Immaculate gave me a little energy, and I objected, saying that I too am a guest like the others, and that I am free to enter the building during the visiting hours, and that no exceptions can be made.8

The baptism of the Jew cited earlier even merits him the title of missionary, which he proudly displays to a confrere in Rome in the following letter:

In the same place I had the joy to baptize a Jew. This incited the hatred of almost all the academics, and when one of them asked the doctor in charge to call for a (priest...), when she saw that it was me, she told him that he could call the other priests but not this one because he is a...missionary. What a beautiful crime indeed! What happiness to be able to die for such a fault.9

When he gets back from the sanatorium, Fr. Kolbe resumes his activity with still more fervor. The MI grows very rapidly and soon a review is founded for its members called The Knight of the Immaculate. In its first issue he explains its purpose:

This review will do all it can to stigmatize lies, to bring the truth to light, and to show the true way to happiness....Everyone looks for happiness and hopes to attain it, but few actually find it because they seek it where it is not to be found.10

This is an idea he often comes back to and where we can see the source of his incredible apostolic zeal. He writes:

Here in the world we see so many souls who are unhappy, wandering, who don't even know the purpose of their life, who love various fallen goods instead of the unique good which is God!11

So many souls...err far from God, the source of happiness. That is our torment.12

And this zeal was as broad as it was intense: the saint wished literally to convert to the Immaculate all of humanity, and saw in this conversion the only means to make peace reign on earth. He writes:

The Immaculate, Queen of heaven, must be recognized, and as quickly as possible, as Queen of all men and of each soul in particular, whether in Poland or beyond its borders, in the two hemispheres of the globe. On this, we dare to affirm, depends the peace and happiness of individuals, families, nations, and of all humanity.13

We see clearly stated here the ideal that animates us in this pilgrimage: the world must turn to Christ to find the peace it has lost in turning away from Him, but to find Him again it will have to pass through Mary. It is God's will that Christ reign in the world (as St. Paul says: "oportet Illum regnare–He must reign"), but it is also His will that this reign come about by the recognition of the sovereignty of Mary.

We see here also, obviously, the profound harmony between St. Maximilian Kolbe and the message of Our Lady of Fatima: the world must publicly recognize the authority of our Lady and obey her if it wishes to avoid catastrophe. Fr. Kolbe never knew of the apparitions of Fatima, which became widely known outside of Portugal only after the consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1942 by Pius XII in (partial) obedience to Her wishes. But, as you may have noticed when we spoke of the beginnings of the MI, this movement was founded only three days after the final apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on October 13, 1917. The coincidence of the two events is certainly not mere chance.

His review The Knight of the Immaculate has an astonishing success. After only a few years it already has a press run of 100,000 copies. In order to amplify still more this apostolate, in 1927 the saint founds a new friary which will be totally consecrated to Mary under the name Niepokalanow, the City (or more exactly, the "property") of the Immaculate.

There follows a veritable explosion of vocations. His biographer writes:

When Br. Maximilian was ordained priest and came back to Poland, the Franciscan Province of this country numbered altogether, counting priests and lay brothers, hardly more than 100 religious. In the space of a few years, Niepokalanow became the most numerous religious community in the world. In 1933 there were 13 priests, 18 professed clerics, 527 lay brothers, 122 seminarians and 82 future lay brothers, all together 762 religious.14

The reaction of the saint was to give all the glory to the Immaculate:

You will see at the Last Judgment how many things I ruined...and with what a "broom" the Immaculate was capable of painting beautiful pictures. She truly chooses those who are good for nothing.15

But he adds, typically:

The Immaculate is capable of doing much more than She has done up till now, yes, even much more than we can imagine. On the condition that we become more each day her thing and Her property, She will accomplish much greater miracles.16

The life at Niepokalanow is far from being tranquil; on the contrary, its impetuous rhythm is frankly disconcerting. The saint admits it, saying:

Our community has a style of life that is a little bit heroic, as is necessary if Niepokalanow wants to truly attain the end which it has fixed itself; namely, not only to defend the faith and contribute to the salvation of souls, but, by a bold attack, in a perfect forgetfulness of self, to conquer for the Immaculate one soul after another, one bastion after another, to raise its flag on the publishing houses of dailies, and periodicals, etc., etc.17

This rhythm did in fact disconcert certain people at the beginning, as witnesses one of the first priests:

When I was sent to stay at Niepokalanow, I was incapable of eating or sleeping for several days, so afraid I was that this enterprise shake to pieces by the very ardor of its pace. However, as time went by, I became so accustomed to the unusual way of doing things of Fr. Maximilian that I followed this impetuous rhythm, like the others. Fr .Maximilian, harassed by apparently insurmountable difficulties, used to exclaim several times: "Oh! What will I do?" The moment after he would regain control and smile, saying : "Finally, what is there to worry about? Let the Virgin Mary take care of it. As for me, I will get down to work."18

In a letter at this period Fr. Kolbe explains his way of thinking on this point:

When I had too many problems and difficulties in the publishing work, more than once the thought came to me: "Stop being foolish! Why do you torment yourself in this way? Is it yours, perhaps, this publishing house? But if everything depends on the Immaculate, confide to Her the worries. She will resolve every problem Herself in the best of ways. Let yourself be guided by Her." And I regained peace and interior serenity.19

But it is not this intense exterior activity that is the essential thing at Niepokalanow. The saint tells his brothers:

The new buildings are not, in themselves, a sign of progress. Even if we receive brand new machines of the latest technology, true progress does not consist in that. Even if The Knight were to multiply its subscriptions by two or three times, that would not prove either that Niepokalanow was progressing, because everything that is exterior is very often deceptive.

In what then consists the progress of Niepokalanow? What does it depend on? Niepokalanow isn't only the work we do in the cloister or outside, it is above all our souls. Everything else, even our science, is merely exterior. The true progress of Niepokalanow is found in the sanctification of our souls. Each time that our souls become established in a greater conformity to the will of the Immaculate, we will make a step forward in the development of Niepokalanow.

That is why, even if it should happen that all activity should cease, and even if all the members of the MI should abandon us, and we ourselves were to be dispersed like leaves in autumn, but in our souls the ideal of the MI would be more deeply rooted, then we could boldly say that that is the moment of the greatest development of Niepokalanow.20

You see how closely St. Maximilian, in his understanding of the kingdom of God to be established in the world, followed the teaching of our Lord, who said to the Pharisees, who were expecting a Messiah who would come with great glory and set up a worldly kingdom: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom is God is within you."21 We mustn't be too troubled, then, when we see the terrible state the Church is in, as if God must have abandoned her. If His kingdom were a matter of exteriors, there would certainly be reason to wonder how His promises to the Church are being fulfilled now, because exteriorly, she is in shambles, with no apparent hope of recovery. But if, with St. Maximilian, we look at things interiorly, we realize that what God is permitting to happen is simply a means by which He wants to renew the Church interiorly. On condition, obviously, that we are willing to be renewed interiorly: the whole question is there.

Fr. Kolbe helps his brothers achieve this interior progress by explaining to them the consecration to Mary very often22–one could almost say that he practically speaks of nothing else. Far from tiring his audience, however, he enthralled them:

Saturday, in the place of morning meditation, he gave his brothers conferences on Our Lady. When he spoke of the Immaculate, he was never short of ideas. And he spoke with such great emotion, in a way that was so moving, and at the same time so profound and so logical, so easy to follow, that he captivated the attention of everyone.

The conferences of the Servant of God, which returned always to the theme of the Immaculate, didn't bore us, for he always projected a new light on truths already known, or suggested new thoughts, new original means in order to understand them.23

For example, commenting on the act of consecration, he says:

If we belong to the Immaculate, then everything we have belongs to Her also and Jesus accepts everything that comes from us as if it came from Her, as if it belonged to Her....That is why Satan wants absolutely to separate souls from union with the Immaculate, because He knows that a soul who excludes the mediation of the Immaculate offers to Jesus gifts that are so full of imperfections that they are more worthy of chastisement than recompense. And the worst of it is that these gifts are poisoned with pride, because one believes that one has no need of the Immaculate.24

And in fact, deep down, we all know that. That is why the consecration to Mary can help us to have confidence in spite of our sins. The saint writes:

Sometimes we have doubts: so often it happens that we have not been faithful to grace, with the result that we are no longer worthy of the help of God. But that is precisely why God has given us the heavenly Mother to whom He has confided the entire order of His mercy,25 as if He wanted to protect us from His justice. One must never say, then, now that it is no longer possible to obtain the grace of God because our conscience is in sin and there is no way to raise ourselves up. It suffices simply to approach the Immaculate. May he who falls turn to Her with confidence.26

The necessity of this mediation of Mary explains the insistence of the saint on the will of the Immaculate: "Let us be careful," he says, "to conform our will to Hers and to accomplish this will in the most perfect manner. This is everything."27 The will of the Immaculate is objectively, materially, the same thing as the will of God.28 But we do this thing directly, first of all, insofar as it is the Immaculate that wills it, not directly and immediately insofar as it is God's will, because in this way we give our act totally to Her, so that She can give it, as Her own, to God. Thus he writes: "By the Immaculate our acts of love become spotless because they belong to Her, just as we do."29

And our saint lived what he taught, as we can see, for example, in the following incident recounted in his biography:

When he was at the friary at Cracov, Fr. Maximilian often had strong fevers. One time (during one of these attacks) he was invoking Our Lady continually saying "Mary! Mary!" and at the same time made a sign indicating that he lacked something he wanted. His brother, Fr. Alphonsus, who was staying by him, finally managed to understand what he wanted: Fr. Maximilian desired that his glasses and his watch be placed at the feet of the little statue of Mary that was on his night table. That might seem a strange expression of delirium, but later he explained the motive of his request: "The glasses are the symbol of my eyes, the watch the symbol of my time: I have totally consecrated the one and the other to Her."30

On this question of time, we have this delicious remark at the end of a short letter to his mother which reveals the bottom of the soul of the saint: "I stop, in order to dedicate my time to the cause of the Immaculate in the whole world."31

Another example: he offers to the Immaculate the sufferings due to the climate in Japan. Thus he writes to his brother:

If you want to sleep at night without being woken up by the mosquitoes, you have to cover yourself up entirely, face included; but then you can't get to sleep because of the heat and the perspiration; but this also is for the Immaculate in order to conquer the greatest possible number of souls for her.32

All of this is always based on the fundamental truth of Mary's mediation of all graces. The saint writes:

As the first-born, the God-man, was not conceived but by the explicit consent of the heavenly Virgin, thus also, and not in any other way, it happens in the divine birth of other human beings, who must exactly imitate in all things their Prototype.33

Thus he says:

God the Father, through the Son and the Holy Ghost, does not make supernatural life descend in the soul except through the Mediatrix of all graces, the Immaculate, by Her consent, by Her collaboration. She receives all the treasures of grace as Her property and distributes them to whom She wills and in the measure that She Herself chooses.34

The role of Mary, as we can see, is vitally important, but at the same time it is very little known, and even less practiced. Thus the saint writes:

Devotion to the Immaculate is a secret that many don't know yet, or rather they know it but they practise it only superficially, when in reality it is, by the will of God, the substance of all sanctity.35

This is why the saint warned his brothers against a certain timidity that could cool their devotion for the Immaculate under the pretext that it was exaggerated and lessened the honor which we give to our Lord. He writes:

I get irritated sometimes when I'm reading something and I notice that the author underlines with an excessive precaution that Our Lady is "after Jesus" all our hope. Obviously this can be understood in a proper way. Nonetheless this exaggerated worry to not omit this little clause–which is no doubt intended as a sign of veneration for Jesus–is rather, I think, personally, on the contrary, offensive to Him.

Let us take an example (in our own publishing activity): when the ordinary machines became insufficient, we added the rotary press, and we can rightly affirm that, in order to print The Knight on time, all our hope is placed in the rotary press. But if each time we said that, someone were to add, with a worried air: "(Yes, but) after the factory that constructed it," he would manifest the conviction that this machine could fail and that it would be necessary to have recourse to the factory. All of which would indicate that the factory had not constructed the machine with the necessary solidity, something which would certainly not be to the honour of the factory.

How little the Immaculate is known still, in theory and even less in practice! How many prejudices, misunderstandings and difficulties agitate many souls! May the Immaculate grant to Her Niepokalanows to illumine this darkness, and dissipate these cold clouds and revivify souls and inflame them with love for Her, without any limit, with full liberty, without these vain fears that restrict and chill the hearts of men! So that the King not be sought outside of His palace but within, deeply within its interior, in its inner rooms.36

It is not that St. Maximilian thinks that he himself understands this "secret" he speaks of. He responds to his seminarians who had asked for his help:

I don't know either, neither in theory, and even less in practice, how one ought to serve the Immaculate, be Her instrument, servant, son, slave, thing, property, and...Her Herself. She alone must instruct each of us at every instant, She must lead us, transform us into Herself so that it not be any longer we who live, but She who lives in us, just as Jesus lives in Her and the Father in the Son.37

This is why prayer is absolutely necessary in order to know the Immaculate:

My little sons...it is not given to everyone to know the Immaculate, but only to those who beg for such a grace on their knees....Only the Holy Ghost can make His spouse known to whom He wishes and how He wishes.38

With regard to this idea, it is interesting to cite the testimony of his secretary, who described as follows Fr. Maximilian when he was writing his book on the Immaculate.

Fr Maximilian dictated to me the text while walking back and forth in the cell. He often interrupted himself, reflected, or rather elevated his spirit towards the Immaculate, because at those moments he recollected himself and appeared to fix his gaze far off. Often he took his rosary in his right hand and put it on his heart. From time to time we stopped in order to recite three Ave Maria's and a Gloria Patri, on our knees with our heads inclined, for he said often, "We are writing only what the Immaculate Herself wishes; therefore we have to pray to Her for this intention."39

And in the introduction to this book the saint writes:

When you gird yourself in preparation to read something on the Immaculate, don't forget that at that moment you are entering into contact with a living being, who loves you, and who is pure, free from all stain....She Herself will manifest Herself through the intermediary of the thoughts you will read and will communicate thoughts, convictions, and sentiments that the author himself was utterly incapable of imagining.40

And a little farther on:

Human language must serve merely to make the soul approach Her, because it will be She Herself Who will manifest Herself more and more clearly to the soul....Approaching directly to her Heart you will attain a greater knowledge of Her and be inflamed by a greater love for Her than all the human words together could teach you.41

Still on this subject he writes:

In order to understand more profoundly who the Immaculate is, it is absolutely indispensable to recognize one's own nothingness, and resolve to offer a humble prayer in order to obtain the grace of knowing Her and do all that one can to experience in one's own life Her goodness and power. It is well worth it to try.42

Thus to a brother who asked him for a bibliography of Mariology he sends a long list of titles, and adds at the end:

I don't have anything more than that to send you. At any rate, one penetrates this question more deeply with one's knees than with one's brains.43

And to another brother he writes:

It would be a very good thing to study Mariology, but let us always remember that we will know the Immaculate more by humble prayer and a loving experience in our daily life than in all the learned definitions, distinctions, and arguments (even though it is not permitted to neglect those either).44

Also in some notes of a retreat he writes: "He who loves will know the Immaculate much more than a philosopher or a theologian."45

The truth of the matter is, in fact, that it is impossible to understand the Immaculate. He writes:

The cause of the Immaculate is a mystery in the proper sense of the term, because She is the Mother of God and God is infinite, while our intelligence is limited.46

One can always penetrate more deeply this mystery–and there will always remain more that we don't understand (even in heaven). St. Maximilian himself never ceased during his whole life to ask: "Who are You, O Immaculate?"47 and his writings contain some very profound things on the subject. But in the end, he says, we haven't even started:

Everything that has been said about Our Lady up to now is nothing; everything remains yet to be said.48

 

Fr. Albert, O.P., is a member of the traditional Dominican monastery at Avrillé, France, several of whose members were ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre. He is a professor of Philosophy and Theology. Title page picture taken from the cover of The Death Camp Proved Him Real (published by Prow, 1971).

 

1 Like St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, one of his favorite saints, Fr. Kolbe had to fight against a strong tendency to self-love. One remarks often in his personal writings references to this fault. For example:

May You be eternally blessed, Lady and Queen, my little Mother, because You deign to think of me, so full of pride and self-love. (SK 988F, entry in his journal on June 16, 1919)

As far as I am concerned, personally humiliations are truly very necessary. (SK 361, letter to Fr. Czupryk, August 17, 1931).

May the Immaculate recompense you generously, Most Reverend Fr. Provincial, for the benevolent admonition to avoid pride, because, to tell the truth, I lack very much above all the virtue of humility, and sometimes I think to myself how powerful the Immaculate must be. God resists the proud, and gives His grace to the humble (Jas. 4:6), but the Immaculate, by the mercy of God, knows how to use even the proud as Her instruments. (SK 409, letter to Fr. Czupryk, March 28, 1932)

Thus as well, in his journal he admits having thoughts of vanity on seeing the big rolls of paper arriving for the publication of The Knight (SK 989B, July 13), and in a letter to his community in Japan he confesses having had thoughts of pride because of his success in writing Japanese (SK 504). It is comforting to see that even the saints had to battle against their corrupt nature, and very encouraging to see that, by the help of God's grace and their own generous and persevering cooperation with that grace, they were able to gain such a complete victory.

2 SK 988G, Notes of journal for October 7, 1919.

3 A. Ricciardi, O.F.M. Conv., Maximilien Kolbe prêtre et martyr (Paris: Mediaspaul, 1987), p. 77. With regard to his health, a doctor who examined him in Japan testified:

His life was a continual act of heroism. I examined him medically and I ascertained that he had a very ill lung. I prescribed absolute rest for him, but he responded that he would continue to work as he had been doing because he had been in this state for years. I recognized in him a will to keep going that was truly extraordinary. Another doctor who took care of him in Japan is more explicit:

As a doctor I was convinced that he had an absolute need of rest. When I prescribed it to him he told me that the doctors in Europe had already declared that his sickness was incurable, and since he wanted to do something with his life on this earth, he couldn't do it without making great sacrifices. His activity seemed impossible to me with mere human resources, without a special intervention of God. Often he had a fever of 40 degrees (Ricciardi, p. 185).

4 Ibid., p. 81, SK 52, letter to Br. Alphonsus December 8, 1920.

5 Ibid., p. 81 (with a false reference to a letter of October 11, 1920 to Br. Alphonsus).

6 Ibid., p. 82, SK 54, letter to Br. Alphonsus January 12, 1921 (not 1920, as Ricciardi writes, following the obvious error in the original).

7 Ibid., p. 83. One is struck here, first of all, by the power of the miraculous medal, but as well by the astonishing efficacity of Fr. Kolbe's prayer.

8 SK 53, letter to Br. Alphonsus, January 5, 1921.

9 SK 55, letter to Br. Jerome Biasi, January 25, 1921.

10 SK 994-995, in the first issue of The Knight, January 1922.

11 SK 1331, in the material prepared for the book he was writing on the Immaculate. This text is a commentary on the act of consecration. The phrase quoted is with regard to the words: "In order that in Your immaculate and most merciful hands, etc."

12 SK927, letter to Br. Victor Pawlowski, December 23, 1940.

13 SKI 113.

14 Ricciardi, Maximilien Kolbe, p. 141.

15 SK 322, letter to Fr. Florian Koziura, February 17, 1931.

16 SK 636, letter to Br. Gabriel Sieminski, August 8, 1935.

17 SK 199, letter to Fr Czupryk, December 21, 1928.

18 Ricciardi, Maximilien Kolbe, p.130.

19 SK 140, letter to Fr. Alphonsus, November 19, 1926.

20 Ricciardi, Maximilien Kolbe, p. 142.

21 Lk. 17: 20-21.

22 As he writes to his brothers at Niepokalanow from Nagasaki : "We must nourish souls on the Immaculate, in order that as soon as possible they might become like Her and be transformed into Her" (SK 647, letter of October 10, 1935).

23 Ricciardi, Maximilien Kolbe, pp. 241-43, quotes of witnesses at the process of beatification.

24 SK 1301, notes prepared for his book.

25 Allusion to the first phrase in the act of consecration: "...to Whom God has confided the entire order of His mercy." He concludes an article he prepared on St. Theresa of the Child Jesus (but which was never published) saying: "Let us also (be little flowers of the Immaculate) and She will teach us an unlimited confidence in the merciful love of God, of which She is the personification" (SK 1263). And similarly in his notes for the book he was writing "The dispensatrix of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus... is the divine mercy personified in the Immaculate." (SK 1331)

26 Conference August 8, 1938.

27 SK 605, letter to Br. Ruffin Majdan, Venance Zarzeka and Efrem Szuca after October 10, 1934.

28 As he says in another place (SK 1271, inedited notes): "The will of God and of the Immaculate convertuntur, that is to say, coincide, are interchangeable." In the scholastic philosophy that he learned in Rome one speaks, for example, of the terms being and unity as being interchangeable in this way ("Ens et unum convertuntur") because they signify precisely the same thing from different points of view.

29 SK 1298, inedited notes written in 1940.

30 Ricciardi, Maximilien Kolbe, p. 75.

31 SK 545, letter of October 30, 1933. His poor mother had other occasions of mortification of this sort, as, for example, when the saint returned to Poland from his mission in Japan for a chapter of his province in 1936, and then left immediately after without going to Cracov to visit her. He writes her from Japan: "Dearest Mother, I couldn't come see you before leaving because most probably I would have had to defer my departure, and the missions are something very urgent." (SK 281, letter to his mother, September 2, 1930; cf. also Ricciardi, p. 166)

32 SK 280, letter to Fr. Alphonsus, August 31, 1930.

33 SK 1295, notes prepared for his book.

34 SK 1310, notes prepared for his book.

35 SK 687, letter to Fr. M. Mirochna, November 11, 1936.

36 SK 603, letter to the community of Niepokalanow, November 10, 1934.

37 SK 556, letter to the clerics at Cracov, February 8, 1934. If this manner of speaking seems too bold to some, one can remind them that St. Louis de Montfort says something similar in The Secret of Mary (n. 55): "This devotion faithfully practised, produces an infinity of effects in the soul. But the principal one...is to establish here below the life of Mary in a soul, so that it not be any longer the soul that lives, but Mary in it; or the soul of Mary becomes its soul, if we can put it that way." St. Maximilian often evokes this mystery, and searches very far to find words to express it, even going to the point where he says we must be "transubstantiated into Her" (SK 503, letter to C. Harbin, April 11, 1933).

38 Ricciardi, pp.247-8, a quote of the saint given by a witness at the process of beatification.

39 SK 1304, n. 1, where the editor cites the memoirs of Br. Arnold, the secretary of Fr. Kolbe.

40 SK 1306.

41 SK 1317.

42 SK 1225, the final phrase in a radio broadcast given by the saint on national radio from Warsaw February 2, 1938, the text of which appeared in the Echo Niepokalanowa on February 5, 1938.

43 SK 906, letter to Br. A. Zuchowski, September 25, 1940.

44 SK 634, letter Br. S. Milolajczyk, July 28, 1935.

45 SK 983, at the beginning of his notes of a retreat made at Zakopane in October 1937.

46 SK 1286, inedited notes written in 1937.

47 For example, in SK 1305 in the notes for his book, where he poses this question directly to the Immaculate "Who are You, O Lady? Who are You, O Immaculate?" and also SKI 318: "Who are You, O Immaculate Conception?" These questions are, in fact, just an imitation of the insistence of St. Bernadette at Lourdes who, after asking three times Our Lady to reveal who she was, finally obtained the response: "I am the Immaculate Conception" (incident cited in the notes for the book cited, SKI 317).

48 Cited in P. Severino Ragazzini, La spiritualita mariana de S. Massimilian Maria Kolbe dei Frati Minori Convetuali (Ravenna: Edizioni Centro Dantesco, 1982), p. 328.