The Artist and the Stone: St. Maximilian Kolbe

Chastisements and suffering come to save us, to turn us back on the path to God — or to lead us home to Him, as in Fr. Kolbe’s case. 

By Matthew August

If we look at the lives of the saints, we discover a powerful reality — those who are in love with God are always at peace, no matter the hardship, resting in the innermost heart in the will and providence of God. 

Consider the miracle that is the life of the priest and martyr St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941), whose feast we celebrate on Aug. 14, the anniversary of his death in Auschwitz. 

Near the end of his life, Kolbe wrote to his mother:

Dear Mama, 
     At the end of the month of May I was transferred to the camp of Auschwitz. Everything is well in my regard. Be tranquil about me and about my health, because the good God is everywhere and provides for everything with love. It would be well that you do not write to me until you will have received other news from me, because I do not know how long I will stay here. 
     Cordial greetings and kisses, 
     affectionately, 
     Raymond [his birth name].

Father Maximilian Kolbe's prison cell today, Block 11 of the Auschwitz concentration camp

Auschwitz
Kolbe, a Conventual Franciscan friar, was treated viciously during his three months in Auschwitz. The guards made him carry the heaviest loads and planks, and they beat him savagely when he collapsed. He would have died there in the mud had the other prisoners not taken his body and hid him.

When Franciszek Gajowniczek, a man with a wife and children, was sentenced to die in a starvation bunker, Kolbe, 47, stepped forward to take his place. Gajowniczek recalled:

I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me — a stranger. Is this some dream? 

I was put back into my place without having had time to say anything to Maximilian Kolbe. I was saved. And I owe to him the fact that I could tell you all this. The news quickly spread all round the camp. It was the first and the last time that such an incident happened in the whole history of Auschwitz.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe knew what love summoned him to do.

Resistance is futile
God makes use of all things to work His will (see Rom 8:28), rather as an artist gathers his tools to craft a beautiful sculpture out of stone. As the artist lifts his chisel and lays the blow, he discovers that this piece of stone has a will of its own. It has its own voice and its own means to resist the artist. Each time the master artist would lay down a blow to perfect the stone, it would cry out in bitterness and curse the maker. The piece of stone can never become the beautiful statue it was meant to be if it continues to fight back. So we will never become who we were truly meant to be if we resist the One who is perfecting us.

We are living in a culture of death. Even the richest, the most famous, and the powerful can’t seem to get what they want or find satisfaction. We haven’t found a remedy for suffering or death, and there is no way to avoid it.

Rooted in faith
Yet there is another group of people. They live their lives rooted in faith. They can live their lives in continual happiness, because they want what God sends them. They want what life gives them in their current circumstances. This includes everything that comes our way that gives us pain. Chastisements and suffering come to save us, to turn us back on the path to God — or to lead us home to Him, as in Kolbe’s case. 

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us! 
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