O Immaculate, Queen of heaven and earth,Act of Consecration to the Immaculata
Refuge of sinners and our most loving Mother,
God has willed to entrust the entire order of mercy to You.
I, an unworthy sinner, cast myself at Your feet,
humbly imploring You to take me
with all that I am and have,
wholly to Yourself as Your possession and property.
Please make of me,
of all my powers of soul and body,
of my whole life, death, and eternity,
whatever pleases You.
If it pleases You,Act of Consecration (continued)
use all that I am and have without reserve,
wholly to accomplish what has been said of You.
Greater love has no one than this:John 15:13
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
He taught others what he would himself prove: that trust casts out fear.
If the thought of your past life and former sins torments you,Letter of spiritual direction
if you do not have the courage to look at what is awaiting you beyond the grave,
consecrate yourself totally and unreservedly to her.
Entrust to her the whole problem of your salvation,
your life, death and eternity.
Confess your sins sincerely and trust fully in her.
Then you will know what peace and happiness really are,
a foretaste of paradise.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,Psalm 23:4
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me.
In 1941, as Nazi darkness covered Poland, he wrote an article that infuriated his captors. It named the true battlefield.
No one in the world can change Truth.Article "Truth" (published before final arrest)
What we can do and should do is to seek truth
and to serve it when we have found it.
The real conflict is the inner conflict.
Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps,
there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul:
good and evil, sin and love.
And what use are the victories on the battlefield
if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?
Auschwitz, late July 1941. A prisoner had escaped from Block 14. In retaliation, Deputy Commander Karl Fritzsch selected ten men from the same block to die by starvation.
When one of the selected—Franciszek Gajowniczek—cried out, "My wife! My children! I will never see them again!" a man stepped out of line.
Fritzsch demanded: "Who are you?"
The man replied: "I am a Catholic priest."
It was prisoner #16670. Maximilian Kolbe.
Fritzsch accepted the exchange. Kolbe and nine others were locked in the underground starvation bunker of Block 11, Cell 16.
For two weeks, as the other prisoners died, Kolbe led prayers and hymns. Fellow prisoners in adjacent cells testified they could hear him comforting the dying.
After fourteen days, Kolbe was still alive. The SS needed the cell. A guard came with a syringe of phenol.
Kolbe extended his arm.
It was August 14, 1941.
— Eyewitness testimony, Auschwitz Museum records
There is no fear in love.1 John 4:18
But perfect love drives out fear.
Neither death nor life,Romans 8:38-39
neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future,
nor any powers,
neither height nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words.Teaching of St. Maximilian
"Whatever pleases You," he had prayed.
What pleased her was that he die for a stranger.
And in dying, prove that love is stronger.
A Prayer with St. Maximilian Kolbe
O Immaculate,
I cast myself at your feet.
Take me—all that I am and have—
wholly as your possession and property.
If the thought of my past torments me,
if I do not have courage to face what awaits,
let me entrust to you the whole problem of my salvation.
Use all that I am without reserve.
When I face evil that seems overwhelming,
when armies of occupation surround me,
remind me that the real conflict is within—
between love and sin.
Give me the love that shows itself in deeds, not words.
Through the intercession of St. Maximilian,
prisoner #16670,
who proved in Cell 16 that love is stronger than death—
teach me to choose the gift of self.
Even in darkness.
Especially in darkness.
Amen.
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