The Holy Masculinity of Saint Maximillian Maria Kolbe

He founded The Knights of the Immaculata & Lived The Life of a True CRUSADER. We desperately need his intercession and courage today.

Saint Maximillian Maria Kolbe at Kolbe Nat’l Shrine, Marytown, IL, photo by author

All his life Saint Maximillian Maria Kolbe carried a pocketful of the medals-“bullets” he called them.

In their porn rave song “Start Me Up” the world’s oldest debauched teenager Mick Jagger screams:

She’ll make a grown man cry

A wicked promise that old perverts having foreplay with teenage girls will bring the kind of tears men should lust for and is unfortunately written on the debauched minds of nearly every ‘Murican male of the “Rock-n-Roll Era”. This explains, better than any other mile post, the wretched state of our culture today. My friend Joseph Pearce wrote of an encounter with these effeminate louts at the Charlotte, NC airport.

I ordered the local ale and joined in the conversation of the three men sitting beside me. They didn’t know each other but two of them have formed an instant bond of brotherhood on the basis that they are both former Marines. All three men were engaged in venting against the women in their lives. One of the former Marines told us that he was on his way to a wedding in Savannah, adding cynically that the groom was making the same mistake that he had made already. The other two agreed. The youngest of the three, who wasn’t married, spoke of his plans to deliberately arrive home late because it would annoy his girlfriend. Good, the two former Marines exclaimed. It was important to “train” women as early as possible to know who’s boss. Their bitterness signified the miserable relationships they were in and the misery which their misogyny was causing.

The low-life level of the conversation was epitomized when one of the former Marines gushed forth his admiration for Mick Jagger for his success in having “impregnated another supermodel.” Unable to retain a polite silence any longer, I said that I found Sir Mick a sorrowful figure. This clearly puzzled my three barstool friends. Why would I say such a thing? He’s rich, he impregnates women less than half his age, and he even has a knighthood from Her Majesty’s Government. Isn’t he the embodiment of success? Isn’t he living the sort of life that all of us dream of living?

I told them that the purpose of growing old was to grow up.

Gentlemen, we can and must commit ourselves per St Maximillian Maria to do better.

This morning I read this brief hagiography of Saint Maximilliam Maria Kolbe which focuses on his chivalrous devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and his CRUSADER-like war against “the enemies of [Her Son’s] Church”. On 20 October, 1917, Kolbe found the Order of The Knights of The Immaculata. Just 3 short days after Our Lady’s Miracle of The Sun at Fatima, she had chosen and christened her knights for the battle against Masons & Commies.

She made those grown man cry.

The logo of the Knights of The Immaculata on the cover of their magazine. The caption reads “Knight of Immaculata, you destroyed all the world heresies by Yourself”

St Maximillian Kolbe taking the Jewish man’s place in the Starvation Bunker, painting on display in Nat’l Kolbe Shrine in Chicago (Marytown), IL. Photo by the author

OUR KNIGHT IN ACTION

Returning to Brother John Neumann’s hagiography of Saint Maximillian.

Saint Maximilian humbly left all major decisions of strategy for the Militia to Our Lady, and now patiently awaited the directives She would reveal to him in Her usual inconspicuous way and at Her own good time. Meanwhile, he and his fellow Knights would concentrate on recruiting new members and spreading devotion to the Miraculous Medal. All his life the saint carried a pocketful of the medals-“bullets” he called them. Whenever he went among the public, he seized every opportunity for making a convert. And after giving some soul the challenge of the Faith, he would present the person with a Miraculous Medal, leaving it to Our Lady to finish the job.

Penance was another powerful weapon for the Crusade, and Saint Maximilian utilized it expertly. Shortly after he came to Rome he began to suffer terrible headaches constantly. He also contracted tuberculosis. The doctors failed to diagnose the consuming disease and consequently his lungs continued to deteriorate, especially after his return to Poland in 1919, where the climate was menacing to such a condition. But the spiritual warrior never complained, and rarely allowed any sign of his intense suffering to betray him. “It is understood that whoever works for the Immaculate Virgin must be ready to suffer much,” he would say. Few if any knew he was chronically ill. Some even ignorantly belittled him for his deliberate slowness of movement, which was necessary to avoid hemorrhaging.

I could fill 10 pages up with St Kolbe’s Knighthood and his media crusade which he operated out of Niepokalanow – “Marytown”. Of this CRUSADE St. Kolbe is quoted as saying.

“For us it is not merely enough to defend the Faith. We have the fortress and, full of trust in our Leader, we go among the enemy hunting hearts to conquer for the Immaculata….Every heart that beats or will beat on earth until the end of time must become the Immaculata’s prize. This is our aim. And this as soon as possible.”

Saint Maximillian in The Starvation Bunker. Nat’l Kolbe Shrine in Chicago (Marytown), IL. Photo by the author

In 1941 after having escaped another Nazi prison camp, Fr. Kolbe was captured again and sent to Auschwitz where he became known as Prisoner Number 16670.

Fr. Kolbe offered his life in exchange for a Jewish father so that he might continue caring for his imprisoned family. On the morning of August 14, 1941, the director of the infirmary came with a syringe loaded with a lethal dose of carbolic acid. Upon entering the saint’s cell, Maximilian cheerfully offered the executioner his arm for the injection, and with it the frail remnant of his life for God. The next day, on the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, the body of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe was cremated.

The 20th century’s greatest devotee of Our Lady is martyred on her Dormition Day is no coincidence. Saint John Paul II, the first Polish Pope, canonized St Maximillian Kolbe on October 10th, 1982

I founded a lay order called The CRUSADER Knights of The Most Holy Rosary. Our website is here. Our humble goals are similar to St Maximillian Maria’s but our focus is on raising armies of Knights among lay men to work in their homes then communities.

And we are “started up” by the Salve Regina.

Saint Maximillian Maria Kolbe, ora pro nobis!