Overview:

Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

A Reflection for the Memorial of Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr

“Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.” (Ps 116:15)

Find today’s readings here.

There is only one part of my prayer life that I can truthfully call consistent. If my plane is taking off, landing or experiencing above-average turbulence, I’m saying a few Hail Marys.

I know on some level that I am almost certainly not going to die in such a situation. But more than any piety on my part, my rushed, anxious “pray for us sinners/ now and at the hour of our deaths” reflects one thing: I’m not ready. Things are not as they should be, between me and my brothers and sisters in this world and between me and my God. There are people I have hurt; there are people I have not forgiven; there are many, many people whom I failed to serve. And outside the odd mid-flight scare, I have inconsistently dedicated time to be alone with God. 

Maximilian Kolbe knew he was certainly about to die. After three prisoners escaped Auschwitz in the summer of 1941, the camp’s deputy commander selected 10 men to starve to death to serve as an example to the rest. One of the men cried out, “My wife! My children!” Hearing him, Kolbe volunteered to take his place. When asked why, he replied, “I am a Catholic priest.” Placed in an underground bunker, he led the condemned prisoners in prayer and singing hymns to Mary. 

After two weeks, the other nine men having died of starvation and dehydration, the Nazi guards, in need of some prison space, killed Kolbe by lethal injection. His last words? Ave Maria. 

His Hail Mary was not said in a panic but in perfect peace, knowing where he stood with his fellow man and with his God. 

When I saw the readings for today’s feast day, my first thought was: What else is there to say about a man who lived out the commands of Christ so literally? It’s all right there in John’s Gospel: 

Jesus said to his disciples:
“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

St. John Paul II had a similar idea, saying in his homily at the canonization Mass for Maximilian Kolbe, “From today on, the Church desires to address as ‘Saint’ a man who was granted the grace of carrying out these words of the Redeemer in an absolutely literal manner.”

Because Kolbe lived like Christ, he was not afraid to die like Christ. 

In a world with very confused ideas about death and dying—from those who advocate for the legalization of euthanasia to those who have turned themselves into guinea pigs in a quest for immortality—Kolbe shows us what a good death looks like. While he did not freely choose the time or method of his death, he did choose how he would die. 

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,
and no torment shall touch them.
They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead;
and their passing away was thought an affliction
and their going forth from us, utter destruction.
But they are in peace (Wis 3:1-2).

We cannot choose the time or method of our deaths, but we can choose how we die by changing how we live. Most of us will probably not approximate the life of Christ “in an absolutely literal manner. ” But if we make time for prayer and, in our own small way, lay down our lives for others, we, too, can hope to pass into the hand of God with a confident, peaceful Hail Mary.

Ashley McKinless is an executive editor at America and co-host of the ‘Jesuitical’ podcast.