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Kolbean Year
Join us in celebration!
Message of Friar Marco Tasca, Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, to the Polish Friars
Dearest Brothers,
The observance of the 70th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the offering of his life in the camp of Auschwitz, this heroic act of love which earned him the title of “Patron of our difficult times,” is for us an occasion and invitation to honor his legacy and to continue his mission now entrusted to us.
The Kolbean year that we celebrate should be an answer to the invitation of the servant of God, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski: “Do not extinguish the spirit of Father Maximilian.” This invitation maintains its actuality and significance, because the figure of Saint Maximilian must not be forgotten, but rather serve as a font of continual inspiration and as a prophetic spirit directing for us the road to be taken.
The actuality of Saint Maximilian, most of all his witness of life, his Franciscan vocation, and missionary priesthood is relevant to the whole Franciscan Order, but above all to you who are called to continue his mission in his native land.
Saint Maximilian is great not just because he was a wonderful organizer and a great missionary. Father Kolbe was, above all, a man of great faith in God, one with total trust and abandonment to the Father, and unconditional trust in the Immaculata, Mother and Virgin. He was a true disciple of Saint Francis, a faithful Christian and religious, obedient and overflowing with love for the Church, having in his heart a great concern for the salvation of souls.
His heroic gesture of offering his own life for the salvation of another man was the consequence of his daily style of life: heroic, virtuous, given wholly to others. The path of holiness, that Saint Maximilian shows us and which he invites us to travel, with his intercession, consists in our daily offering to the Father, in the footsteps of Jesus, and in totally welcoming his mission, with humility, avoiding every compromise and mediocrity.
During this year, in which we remember the martyrdom and death of Saint Maximilian, I wish you to welcome in your hearts, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, the challenges and inspirations that come from him. They will show us how, reading the signs of our time, we can actualize his love for God and his Kingdom, his missionary ardor, his Marian spirituality, and his creative activity.
Friar Marco Tasca
General Minister
Translation from Ryczerz Niepokalane
Dr. Claude Foster's Poem
Under a punishing summer sun, many hours without food or drink, each inmate
whispers his desperate prayer:
“O God, may the commandant pass me by.
O God, please, my life spare!”
Suddenly a shriek from the ranks of the emaciated Auschwitz skeletons,
“My poor wife and children,”
pierces the air.
Father Maximilian, among hundreds of frail and fainting prisoners, heard the wailing cry.
The Immaculata who, in his youth, had offered him a martyr’s crown, now with tender, endearing invitation, asks, “My servant, Maximilian, this is the moment. Are you willing for your countryman to die?”
As the Mother of our Lord, beneath Golgotha’s cross, participated in the anguish of Her Son, Maximilian knew, under his Auschwitz cross, that, in the family of God, all suffer when suffers one [1 Corinthians 12:26].
In responding to his countryman’s panicked cry, it became clear to Maximilian why he was at Auschwitz, and to what end.
As a priest of the Lord Jesus Christ, he would follow his Master’s example: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for a friend “ [John 15:13].
Buttressed by his unwavering faith in the Immaculata, Father Maximilian approached the commandant, and stood before him, face to face.
“Please,” Father Maximilian pleaded, “let me take his place.”
Dumbfounded by such a request, the commandant stammered his consent, and hurried away.
Dark evil could not tolerate love’s radiant ray.
Number 5659 was replaced by the number 16 670, and Father Maximilian’s martyr crown was about to be won.
The Polish nation and the Courts of Heaven praise the Immaculata’s noble knight, Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe with “WELL DONE!”
Claude R. Foster
Fr. Kolbe Missionaries of the Immaculata - viale Giovanni XXIII, 19 - 40037 Sasso Marconi BO - Italy - info@kolbemission.org
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