Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe

Ever Ancient, Ever New
A series on Saints with a special devotion to the Eucharist


Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe

Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe is familiar to Catholics, and even to non-believers, as a martyr priest who heroically offered up his life in the German concentration camp, Auschwitz, during World War II, in exchange for a fellow inmate (a father of a family with children) to save him from death. 

However, not everyone knows of Saint Maximilian’s profound devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Sacrament, and the powerful way he promoted to come closer to the Eucharistic Jesus through Mary - His Immaculata, as he called the Holy Mother of God. 

His longing for Christ was so extraordinary that during his adult life he used to make ten visits every day to the Blessed Sacrament. At the same time, his life was totally pervaded with devotion to Mary as he desired to encounter Jesus in the Eucharist with and through the Holy Mother.

According to the Real Presence Eucharistic Education and Adoration Association website, he said, “Let us give ourselves to the Immaculata [Mary]. Let her prepare us, let her receive Him [Jesus] in Holy Communion. This is the manner most perfect and pleasing to the Lord Jesus and brings great fruit to us. Because the Immaculata knows the secret, how to unite ourselves totally with the heart of the Lord Jesus ... We do not limit ourselves in love. We want to love the Lord Jesus with her heart, or rather that she would love the Lord with our heart.”

Mary rewarded his devotion with a deep understanding of the Eucharistic mysteries, which he expressed in his prayers filled with exaltation and thanksgiving to Jesus for his incomprehensible miracle of the Eucharistic love, “You come to me and unite yourself intimately to me under the form of nourishment. Your blood now runs in mine, your soul, incarnate God, compenetrates mine, giving courage and support. What miracles! Who would have ever imagined such!”

Saint Maximilian was born as Rajmund Kolbe (1894-1941) in Zduńska Wola, the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. At the age of 12, he had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she offered him a white crown (representing a life of purity), a red crown (representing martyrdom) and she asked which crown he would accept. He desired both. 

In 1917, he founded the ‘Militia Immaculata’ (Catholic evangelization movement) dedicated to bringing about the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the conversion and consecration of souls to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Similar to Saint Louis de Montfort, Kolbe made the motto “Through the Immaculata to Jesus” the integral part of his life and vocation. 

The following year, he was ordained as a Franciscan priest, and took a religious name ‘Maximilian Maria.’ He also established the Roman Catholic periodical Rycerz Niepokalanej (“The Knight of Mary Immaculate”) and founded the City of Mary Immaculate (Niepokalanów, 30 miles from Warsaw), which became a religious center for more than 700 friars and workers. 

During the World War II occupation, the center sheltered, fed and clothed approximately 3,000 Polish refugees, of which approximately 1,500 were Jews. He opened an independent radio station at the Niepokalanów center, published anti-Nazi works and spread the movement of Militia Immaculata to Japan and India. 

By promulgating the devotion to the Immaculate Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, his life was driven by love for the Eucharistic Christ, as he used to speak, “My aim is to institute perpetual adoration … this is the most important activity.”

After being imprisoned and transported to Auschwitz, he never stopped to serving as a priest and witness of Christ by hearing confessions, leading prayers for fellow inmates, singing hymns to Mary and holding Mass with smuggled bread, for which he often experienced severe beatings by the guards. 

He was always exultantly appreciating the great gift and life-giving power of the Eucharist for every soul, as he often expressed, “If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.” 

Maximilian Maria Kolbe was beatified in 1971, and canonized in 1982, by Saint John Paul II, who himself lived through the German occupation of Poland. 

May the example and intercessions of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe help every Catholic receive Jesus in the Holy Communion more reverently and attentively, with the heart of Mary. 

Everyone can enroll in the Militia of the Immaculata in the US at: militiaoftheimmaculata.com/why-and-how-to-enroll-in-the-mi/

Jad Ziolkowska is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.