Chaplet of St. Maximillian Mary Kolbe
Feast: August 14th
The colour picture centre is #284f in honour of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The medal is found in the Saint Medals section under Stainless and is #794.
The beads chosen are blue for Our Lady with red wire for the martyrdom of St. Kolbe. From the description of his life, blue for Our Lady, white for chastity, and red for martyrdom are all appropriate colours.
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, + that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, + implored your help or sought your intercession, + was left unaided.
Inspired with this confidence, + I fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; + to you do I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate, + despise not my petitions, + but in your mercy hear and answer me.
Amen.
2) On each of the 14 beads pray:
O Mary, Conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee, and for all those who do not have recourse to Thee, especially for the enemies of Holy Mother Church, and all those in most need of Thy mercy.
St. Maximillian, pray for us.
3) At the medal of the Immaculate Heart:
Immaculate Heart of Mary, + Pray for us.
4) At the medal of St. Maximillian Mary Kolbe:
St. Maximillian Kolbe, + Pray for us.
He was canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, political prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners, amateur radio and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century".
Kolbe's life was strongly influenced by a childhood vision of the Virgin Mary that he later described:
"That night, I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both."
In 1907 Kolbe and his elder brother Francis decided to join the Conventual Franciscans. They illegally crossed the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and joined the Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów. In 1910 Kolbe was allowed to enter the novitiate. He professed his first vows in 1911, adopting the name Maximilian, and the final vows in 1914, in Rome, adopting the names Maximilian Maria, to show his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In 1912 he was sent to Kraków, and in the same year to a college in Rome, where he studied philosophy, theology, mathematics, and physics. He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915 at the Pontifical Gregorian University, and the doctorate in theology in 1919 at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure. During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes St. Pius X and Benedict XV in Rome and was inspired to organize the Militia Immaculata, or Army of Mary, to work for conversion of sinners and the enemies of the Catholic Church through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. The Immaculata friars utilized the most modern printing and administrative techniques in publishing catechetical and devotional tracts, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000 and a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million.
In 1918 Kolbe was ordained a priest. In 1919 he returned to the newly independent Poland, where he was very active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, a seminary, a radio station and several other organizations and publications.
During the Second World War he provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanów. He was also active as a radio amateur, with Polish call letters SP3RN, vilifying Nazi activities through his reports.
On 17 February 1941 he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, and on May 28 he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670.
In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks vanished, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death in Block 13 (notorious for torture), in order to deter further escape attempts. (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.) One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.
During the time in the cell he led the men in songs and prayer. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three others were still alive. He encouraged others that they would soon be with Mary in heaven. Each time the guards checked on him he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered, while the others lay moaning and complaining, on the ground around him. He was killed with an injection of carbolic acid. Some who were present at the injection say that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. His remains were cremated on the Assumption of Mary.
Father Kolbe was beatified as a confessor by Pope Paul VI in 1971 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 10 October 1982 in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek. Upon canonization, the Pope declared St. Maximilian Kolbe not a confessor, but a martyr. St. Maximilian's beatification miracle was the July 1948 cure of intestinal tuberculosis in Angela Testoni, and in August 1950, the cure of calcification of the arteries/sclerosis of Francis Ranier was attributed to the intercession of St. Maximilian.
Saint Maximillian Mary Kolbe, please pray for us. Background information courtesy of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia