10101982 JPII Maximiliano Maria Kolbe

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CANONIZATION OF MASSIMILIANO MARIA KOLBE

HOMILY OF JOHN PAUL II

St. Peter's Square, October 10, 1982

 1. "No one has a greater love than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (Jn 15:13).

From today the Church wishes to call "saint" a man who has been allowed to fulfill the aforementioned words of the Redeemer in an absolutely literal way.

In fact, towards the end of July 1941, when by order of the head of the camp the prisoners destined to die of hunger were lined up, this man, Maximilian Maria Kolbe, spontaneously presented himself, declaring himself ready to go to death in replacement of one of them.

This availability was accepted, and his father Maximilian, after more than two weeks of torment due to hunger, was finally killed with a fatal injection, on August 14, 1941.

All this happened in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, where about 4,000,000 people were put to death during the last war, including the Servant of God Edith Stein (the Carmelite Sister Teresa Benedetta della Croce), whose cause of Beatification is in progress at the competent Congregation. Disobedience against God, the Creator of life, who said "do not kill", has caused the immense massacre of so many innocent people in this place.

At the same time, therefore, our age has remained so horribly marked by the extermination of innocent man.

2. Father Massimiliamo Kolbe, being himself a prisoner of the concentration camp, claimed, in the place of death, the right to life of an innocent man, one of the 4,000,000.

This man (Franciszek Gajowniczek) still lives and is present among us. Father Kolbe claimed his right to life, declaring his readiness to go to death in his place, because he was a family man and his life was necessary for his loved ones. Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe thus reaffirmed the Creator's exclusive right to the life of innocent man and bore witness to Christ and love. In fact, the apostle John writes: "From this we came to know love: he gave his life for us; therefore we too must lay down our lives for our brothers ”(1 Jn 3:16).

By giving his life for a brother, Father Maximilian, whom the Church has venerated as "blessed" since 1971, he made himself similar to Christ in a particular way.

3. We, therefore, who today, Sunday 10 October, are gathered in front of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, wish to express the special value that the martyrdom death of Father Maximilian Kolbe has in the eyes of God:

"Precious in the eyes of the Lord / is the death of his faithful" (Ps 115 [116], 15), so we repeated in the Responsorial Psalm. It is truly precious and priceless! Through the death which Christ underwent on the Cross, the redemption of the world was accomplished, since this death has the value of supreme love. Through the death suffered by Father Maximilian Kolbe, a clear sign of this love has been renewed in our century, which in such a high degree and in many ways is threatened by sin and death.

Here, in this solemn liturgy of canonization, that "martyr of love" of Oswiecim (as Paul VI called him) seems to present himself among us and say:

“I am your servant, Lord, / I am your servant, son of your handmaid; / you have broken my chains "(Ps 115 [116], 16).

And, almost gathering in one the sacrifice of his whole life, he, priest and spiritual son of St. Francis, seems to say:

“What will I return to the Lord / for what He has given me? / I will lift up the cup of salvation / and call on the name of the Lord "(Ps 115 [116], 12s).

These are words of gratitude. The death suffered for love, in place of the brother, is a heroic act of man, through which, together with the new Saint, we glorify God. In fact, from him comes the grace of this heroism, of this martyrdom.

4. Let us therefore glorify the great work of God in man today. In front of all of us, gathered here, Father Maximilian Kolbe raises his "chalice of salvation", which contains the sacrifice of his whole life, sealed with the death of a martyr "for a brother".

Maximilian prepared himself for this definitive sacrifice by following Christ from the first years of his life in Poland. From those years comes the mysterious dream of two crowns: one white and one red, among which our saint does not choose, but accepts both. In fact, from the years of his youth, a great love for Christ and the desire for martyrdom permeated him.

This love and this desire accompanied her on the path of the Franciscan and priestly vocation, for which she was preparing both in Poland and in Rome. This love and this desire followed him through all the places of the priestly and Franciscan service in Poland, and also of the missionary service in Japan.

5. The inspiration of his whole life was the Immaculate Conception, to whom he entrusted his love for Christ and his desire for martyrdom. In the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, that wonderful and supernatural world of God's grace offered to man was revealed before the eyes of his soul. The faith and life-long works of Father Maximilian indicate that he conceived his collaboration with divine grace as a militia under the sign of the Immaculate Conception. The Marian characteristic is particularly expressive in the life and holiness of Father Kolbe. His entire apostolate was also marked with this mark, both in his homeland and in the missions. Both in Poland and in Japan the special cities of the Immaculate Conception (Polish "Niepokalanow", Japanese "Mugenzai no Sono") were the center of this apostolate.

6. What happened in the Hunger Bunker in the concentration camp in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) on August 14, 1941?

Today's liturgy responds to this: here is "God tried" Maximilian Mary "and found him worthy of himself" (cf. Wis 3,5). He tried it "like gold in the crucible / and welcomed it as a holocaust" (cf. Wis 3,6).

Although "in the eyes of men he suffered punishments", nevertheless "his hope is full of immortality" since "the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, / no torment will touch them". And when, humanly speaking, torment and death reach them, when "in the eyes of men it seemed that they were dying ...", when "their departure from us was considered a disaster ...", "they are in peace" : they experience life and glory "in the hands of God" (cf. Wis 3,1-4).

This life is the fruit of death in the likeness of Christ's death. Glory is participation in his resurrection.

So what happened in the Hunger Bunker on August 14, 1941?

The words addressed by Christ to the Apostles were fulfilled, so that "they would go and bear fruit and their fruit might remain" (cf. Jn 15:16).

In an admirable way, the fruit of the heroic death of Maximilian Kolbe persists in the Church and in the world!

7. At what happened in the "Auschwitz" camp the men looked at. And even if in their eyes it must have seemed that a companion of their torment "died", even if humanly they could consider "his departure" as "a ruin", yet in their conscience this was not only "death".

Maximilian did not die, but "gave his life ... for his brother".

In this death, terrible from a human point of view, there was all the definitive greatness of the human act and of human choice: he offered himself to death for love.

And in his human death there was the transparent witness given to Christ:

the witness given in Christ to the dignity of man, to the holiness of his life and to the saving power of death, in which the power of love is manifested.

Precisely for this reason the death of Maximilian Kolbe became a sign of victory. This was the victory achieved over the whole system of contempt and hatred towards man and towards what is divine in man, a victory similar to that which our Lord Jesus Christ brought to Calvary.

"You are my friends if you do what I command you" (Jn 15:14)

8. The Church accepts this sign of victory, achieved through the power of Christ's Redemption, with reverence and gratitude. Try to read its eloquence with all humility and love.

As always, when she proclaims the holiness of her sons and daughters, so also in this case, she tries to act with all the due precision and responsibility, penetrating into all aspects of the life and death of the Servant of God.

However, the Church must, at the same time, be careful, reading the sign of holiness given by God in her earthly Servant, not to let slip its full eloquence and its definitive meaning.

And therefore, in judging the cause of Blessed Maximilian Kolbe it was necessary - already after his beatification - to take into consideration many voices of the People of God, and above all of our brothers in the Episcopate, both of Poland and of Germany, who asked to proclaim Maximilian Kolbe saint "as a martyr".

Faced with the eloquence of the life and death of Blessed Maximilian, one cannot fail to recognize what seems to constitute the main and essential content of the sign given by God to the Church and to the world in his death.

Does not this death faced spontaneously, out of love for man, constitute a particular fulfillment of Christ's words?

Doesn't it make Maximilian particularly similar to Christ, the Model of all Martyrs, who gives his life on the Cross for his brothers?

Does not such a death possess a particular, penetrating eloquence for our age?

Does it not constitute a particularly authentic witness of the Church in the contemporary world?

9. And therefore, by virtue of my apostolic authority, I decreed that Maximilian Maria Kolbe, who, following his beatification, was venerated as a confessor, should henceforth be venerated "also as a martyr"!

"Precious in the eyes of the Lord / is the death of his faithful"!

Amen.

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