Flat Size: 14" X 8.5" Finished Size: 3.5" X 8.5" Litho: 4CP / 4 CPDiecut or Score Fold Perforation Fold and Perf Kisscut and Fold Lasering XXX and FPO

His RelicsOur reliquary was made in Poland to commemorate Maximilian’s beatification in 1971. Crafted from bronze and silver, this beautiful reliquary presents different symbols from the life of St. Maximilian.

The base is in the shape of Poland – the birthplace and foundation Maximilian’s life. Thorns grow out of the map symbolizing the cruel occupation of Poland by the German Third Reich. Ultimately the thorns symbolize Auschwitz concentration camp where St. Maximilian was martyred.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

This beautiful reliquary of St. Maximilian Kolbe is under the care of the Franciscan Friars Conventual.

Growing out of the thorns, however, are a lily representing purity and a tulip representing martyrdom. These flowers imply that the Nazis thought Maximilian would shrivel like a tulip, but God has made him blossom like a lily. Ultimately both flowers are symbols of his life of love triumphing over hate.

The relics themselves are strands from Maximilian’s’ beard. They are housed in a glass case entwined with the Franciscan cord with its three knots for the Friars’ vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. The Franciscan cord symbolizes Maximilian’s vocation as a Franciscan Friar Conventual.

Strands of St. Maximilian’s beard hair are affixed to the diamond cloth at the center of the glass case.

His LegacyFor more information on St. Maximilian and the Immaculata, please visit the following resources:

Marytown,National Shrine of St. Maximililan Kolbewww.marytown.org

Militia of the Immaculata, USAwww.missionimmaculata.com

Militia of the Immaculata, Internationalwww.mi-international.org

An excellent resource is St. Maximilian Kolbe: Martyr of Charity, by Fr. James McCurry, OFM Conv., Minister Provincial of the Our Lady of the Angels Province. This 64-page booklet, published by CTS in London, is based upon Maximilian’s writings and first-hand testimonies of many witnesses whom the author has known personally and interviewed.

Martyr of Charity&

Saint of our Difficult Times

54586LF

To order go to:www.olaprovince.org

Our Lady of the Angels ProvinceFranciscan Friars Conventual12300 Folly Quarter RoadEllicott City, MD 21042www.olaprovince.org

St. Maximilian Kolbe, late 1930’s, with beard from which hairs were

preserved to create his relics.

In 1919 Fr. Kolbe returned to Poland and became a professor at the Franciscan seminary in Krakow. In 1927 he established the first “City of the Immaculata,” Niepokalanow, outside Warsaw, and in 1930 established another “City,” Mugenzai no Sono, in Nagasaki, Japan. Marytown in Libertyville, Illinois is the third “City of the Immaculata.”

Niepokalanow published countless religious tracts, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 230,000 and a monthly magazine with a circulation of over one million. Fr. Kolbe started a radio station and planned to build a motion picture studio. By 1936 Niepokalanow had grown to number 782 members, the largest Catholic center for evangelism in the world at the time.

In September 1939, Nazi soldiers stormed into Niepokalanow and arrested Fr. Kolbe and 50 other

His LifeSt. Maximilian was born Raymond Kolbe in Poland, January 8, 1894. In 1910, he entered the novitiate of the Franciscan Friars Conventual. In 1912 he was sent to study in Rome where, in 1917, with six confreres, Friar Maximilian founded the Militia Immaculatae (Knights of the Immaculate), a movement whose members are committed to transforming themselves and society through the message of Jesus Christ, especially by identifying with Mary, the Immaculate. In 1918, he was ordained a priest.

religious. Freed in December, Fr. Kolbe returned to Niepokalanow. On February 17, 1941 Fr. Kolbe was arrested by the Gestapo and in May 1941 he was transferred to Auschwitz.

At the end of July 1941, a prisoner from Fr. Kolbe’s cell block escaped. As an example and punishment to the other prisoners, 10 men from his block were randomly selected to die. Fr. Kolbe was not chosen, but volunteered to take the place of Francis Gajowniczek, a man who had a wife and two children. Still alive after two weeks of starvation, Fr. Kolbe was injected with a lethal dose of phenol on August 14, 1941.

Pope John Paul II canonized Maximilian as a “Martyr of Charity” and “Patron Saint of our difficult century” in 1982. St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of prisoners, journalists, families, volunteers, the pro-life movement, and the chemically addicted.

His SpiritualitySt. Maximilian’s spirituality focuses on Mary as Spouse of the Holy Spirit and mediatress, along with Jesus, of God’s redemptive graces to us. While some might view mediations other than Jesus’ mediation as walls that separate us from Christ, Kolbe viewed them as doors and windows through which the Son of God shines in our lives and blesses our souls.

In practice, Kolbe’s Marian spirituality takes the form of a total consecration to Mary, the Immaculate Conception. Because she is without sin, the will of the Immaculate is perfectly and totally united to the Will of the Holy Spirit.

As the Immaculate Conception, therefore, Mary can never be a barrier or wall between God and us for She is incapable of doing anything apart from the will of God. Instead, in our consecration to the Immaculata, we become instruments in Her hands in the work of transforming and redeeming the world according to God’s plan.

Franciscan Friars Conventual being led to prison by Nazi soldiers,

September 1939.

St. Maximilian made the Miraculous Medal a sign of total consecration to

the Immaculata.