Dear Friends in Christ,

Can you believe that it’s been over forty days since Easter? It is astounding to see how quickly we pass through the Easter Season. At this point in the Easter Season, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven, when, after remaining with his apostles for 40 days, Jesus returns to the right hand of the Father. This profound celebration shows to us how God wishes to unite all of humanity to the life of the Trinity through Jesus Christ. By going to the Father, Jesus makes it possible for us to enter into a relationship that even the angels do not have. What a captivating destiny we look forward to in Heaven!

In this week’s letter, as we continue through the account of my recent pilgrimage to Italy and Poland, I wish to share with you about our first experiences in Poland and the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. After completing my time in Assisi, Italy, I caught a flight to Warsaw, Poland, and met with the group of pilgrims who I would be traveling with for the remainder of the trip, many of whom were parishioners of St. Philip’s. We spent one day touring through the city of Warsaw, learning about its history, then in the afternoon we traveled to the town of Niepokalanów, the town in which St. Maximilian Kolbe lived most of his life.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish martyr born in 1894. His original name was Raymond Kolbe, but he took on the name “Maximilian Maria” after entering into the novitiate with the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, also known as Conventual Franciscans. In his early days in the Franciscan order, he studied both philosophy and theology in Rome during the time of World War I. It was during this time that he helped begin the Militia Immaculatae (Latin for “Army of the Immaculate”) as a response to the anti-Catholic prejudice from the Freemason movement. Throughout his life, Maximilian possessed a keen love for the Blessed Mother and even received a vision of Mary in which she invited him to choose either the white crown of chastity or the red crown of martyrdom. Maximilian chose both.

One of the most striking aspects of Fr. Maximilian’s life was the way in which he died. After being captured by the Nazi regime in February 1941, Fr. Maximilian was sent to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, where he suffered cruel torment at the hands of his captors. In July 1941, after a prisoner escaped from the camp, ten men were selected to die by starvation as a punishment. When one man begged for his life because he was a husband and father, Fr. Maximilian heroically stepped forward and offered to take his place.

He and the nine other prisoners were sent to a cell to suffer the torture of starvation, but after two weeks, Fr. Maximilian and three others were still alive. Anxious to regain the use of the cell, the Nazis chose to kill Fr. Kolbe and the other prisoners by a lethal injection that was administered on August 14, 1941. After his death, his body was cremated by the Nazis. However, before his capture, one of the Franciscan brothers preserved some hairs of his beard, which we got to venerate as relics of his.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!

May Christ's Peace be with you, Fr. Briggs