Saint Maximilian, the Vigil of the Assumption, and Entrustment

On today’s Vigil of the Assumption, we celebrate also the memory of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan Friar and priest who spent much of his life as a missionary.

He returned to his native Poland, where he helped lead a publishing house that produced religious tracts and anti-Nazi literature. The friary itself provided shelter to refugees, including some 2,000 Jews they hid from German persecution.

He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and eventually sent to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670.

Following the escape of ten prisoners, the camp commandant ordered that ten prisoners be picked at random and locked in a cell until they starved to death.

Father Maximilian volunteered to go in the place of one of the men.

In the cell, he led the prisoners in prayer. Each time the SS guards looked in, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell, smiling cheerfully at them. After two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.

In their impatience, the guards killed him on August 14, 1941, with a lethal injection of carbolic acid. An eyewitness records that Father Maximilian calmly raised up his arm to receive the injection.

Saint Maximilian’s primary work during his life was the promotion of the consecration of souls to Jesus through Mary, which Pope Saint John Paul II called “entrustment“. Saint Maximilian most famously said, “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.”

Fair enough. But he also said, “If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother.” That’s a little more radical.

In this, he followed the example of the great Saint Louis de Montfort, who developed his theology of Marian consecration in his book True Devotion to Mary. Saint Louis is explicit. The very first sentence: “It was through the Blessed Virgin Mary that Jesus came into the world, and it is also through her that he must reign in the world.”

That sentence would no doubt send some of our Protestant friends into a lather. He does clarify later:

With the whole Church I acknowledge that Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to his infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing, since he alone can say, “I am He who is”. Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of His will and the manifestation of His glory. To do all things He has only to will them.

However, I declare that, considering things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish His greatest works through the Blessed Virgin ever since He created her, we can safely believe that He will not change His plan in the time to come, for He is God and therefore does not change in His thoughts or His way of acting.

Like Saint Louis de Montfort before him, Saint Maximilian Kolbe preached total consecration to Mary, and through her to the Sacred Heart of her most Divine Son. He founded an organization dedicated to this – the Militia of the Immaculata – which to this day “promotes total personal consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary as a spiritual weapon to renew individuals, convert sinners, and bring people closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus”.

Or, in the words of the saint, “to win the entire world for the Immaculata and, through her, for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

With a number of others in my parish, I have been preparing myself for this personal act of entrustment, to take place tomorrow on the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

We have been using as our guide a book called 33 Days to Morning Glory, written by Rev. Michael E Gaitley of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I have been supplementing this with de Montfort’s book, particularly his program of prayer. It has been a powerful spiritual experience.

The preparation period is 33 days, and the saints suggest this period be arranged so that the final act will take place on a Marian feast.

For myself, I can think of no better day than tomorrow, which is the 22nd anniversary of the day that Francine and I first walked into a Catholic church together. Our Catholic Anniversary.

I have spoken about the importance of this day for us before, but it’s worth mentioning that more than twenty years ago, it was Our Lady of the Assumption that brought me into the arms of Jesus and the embrace of His Church.

Also tomorrow, all Tacoma will celebrate “a day of Grace and Glory” at Cheney Stadium with Archbishop Etienne. Imagine that: the Mass of the Assumption celebrated by our Archbishop in a stadium!

I will be there, helping out as best as I can, and later that evening, several of us will head over to Holy Cross Church for the Act of Entrustment. I can’t wait.

”Jesus honored her before all ages, and will honor her for all ages. No one comes to Him, nor even near Him, no one is saved or sanctified, if he too will not honor her. This is the lot of Angels and of men.”

(Saint Maximilian Kolbe)