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Friends of the Rosary,
Today, August 14, is the Memorial of St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe (1894-1941), a Polish Franciscan, friar, priest, and martyr of Auschwitz, who founded a movement of Marian consecration called Militia of the Immaculata, With his preaching and writing, he undertook an intense apostolic mission in Europe and Asia.
Imprisoned in Auschwitz during the Second World War, he offered himself in exchange for a young father of a large family who was to be executed, Francis Gajowniczek.
When the captors couldn’t kill him from starvation in the concentration camp, they ended his life with a lethal injection on August 14, 1941.
In 1927, he established an evangelization center near Warsaw called Niepokalanow, the “City of the Immaculata.” By 1939, the City had expanded from eighteen friars to an incredible 650, making it the largest Catholic religious house in the world.
To better “win the world for the Immaculata,” the friars utilized modern printing and administrative techniques, enabling countless catechetical and devotional works, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000, and a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million.
Maximilian started a shortwave radio station and planned to build a motion picture studio—he was a true “apostle of the mass media.” He established a City of the Immaculata in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1930, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide.
Maximilian was a ground-breaking theologian. His insights into the Immaculate Conception anticipated the Marian theology of the Second Vatican Council and further developed the Church’s understanding of Mary as “Mediatrix” of all the graces of the Trinity, and as “Advocate” for God’s people.
Pope St. John Paul II canonized him in 1982 and proclaimed him a “martyr of charity” and “Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century.” Francis Gajowniczek was in attendance.
He is a patron of journalists, families, prisoners, the pro-life movement, and the chemically addicted.
Ave Maria!
Jesus, I Trust In You!
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!
Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!
+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York
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