St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe- a martyr of charity
8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941
As a child, St. Maximilian had a vision of Mary, in which the blessed Mother offered him two crowns. The first, the white crown of virginity. The second, the red crown of martyrdom. He rarely spoke of the encounter, and even then only obliquely. In 1941, after her son had perished in Auschwitz, Kolbe’s mother recollected her son’s childhood encounter with the Blessed Mother. Hiding under the family’s altar, Maria Dabrowska found her son, “trembling and with tears in his eyes, he told me, ‘When you said to me, ‘What will become of you?’
I prayed very hard to our Lady to tell me what would become of me. And later in Church I prayed again. Then the Virgin Mother appeared to me that night holding in her hands two crowns, one white and one red. She looked at me with love and she asked me if I would be willing to accept either of these crowns. The white meant that I would remain pure and the red one that I would be a martyr. I answered that I would accept them both. Then the Virgin looked at me tenderly and disappeared.'”
The fiat, the yes, of his childhood was confirmed over a life of practice. He made himself ready for the gift of martyrdom through the daily practice of attuning his heart to Christ through the Immaculata until the day came when he could freely offer himself as a sacrifice of love for another. Accepting the crowns offered to him as a child, Kolbe entrusted his love for Christ and His Sacred Heart to Mary and declared his desire to live and die for the Immaculata. The sacrifice of his whole life and the manner of his death affirmed the words of the Apostle John: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3:16).
#august #kolbe #saints
8 January 1894 – 14 August 1941
As a child, St. Maximilian had a vision of Mary, in which the blessed Mother offered him two crowns. The first, the white crown of virginity. The second, the red crown of martyrdom. He rarely spoke of the encounter, and even then only obliquely. In 1941, after her son had perished in Auschwitz, Kolbe’s mother recollected her son’s childhood encounter with the Blessed Mother. Hiding under the family’s altar, Maria Dabrowska found her son, “trembling and with tears in his eyes, he told me, ‘When you said to me, ‘What will become of you?’
I prayed very hard to our Lady to tell me what would become of me. And later in Church I prayed again. Then the Virgin Mother appeared to me that night holding in her hands two crowns, one white and one red. She looked at me with love and she asked me if I would be willing to accept either of these crowns. The white meant that I would remain pure and the red one that I would be a martyr. I answered that I would accept them both. Then the Virgin looked at me tenderly and disappeared.'”
The fiat, the yes, of his childhood was confirmed over a life of practice. He made himself ready for the gift of martyrdom through the daily practice of attuning his heart to Christ through the Immaculata until the day came when he could freely offer himself as a sacrifice of love for another. Accepting the crowns offered to him as a child, Kolbe entrusted his love for Christ and His Sacred Heart to Mary and declared his desire to live and die for the Immaculata. The sacrifice of his whole life and the manner of his death affirmed the words of the Apostle John: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3:16).
#august #kolbe #saints