From the Friars: The Triumph of Grace
This week we will celebrate the great Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By Divine Providence the day prior, August 14th, we honor St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Franciscan priest and martyr. A new movie called “Triumph of the Heart” about this Saint will be released on September 12th, with pre-release screenings on the 14th. Kolbe’s life is an amazing story of a man on fire with love for Jesus, his neighbor and for the Holy Mother of God whom he always affectionately called the Immaculata.
Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, by unknown author – Public Domain, Link
Known especially as the priest who gave his life in exchange for another condemned prisoner at Auschwitz, the movie focuses on the ordeal of his last days in the starvation bunker with his nine companions. They were sentenced to this horrible death in retaliation for the escape of fellow prisoners. Normally there were cries of despair, agony and curses coming from the starvation cells. St. Maximilian and his companions sang hymns and prayed, praying especially for those blinded by hate and lies. The S.S. guards could not bear to look into the saint’s eyes as they were full of compassion and forgiveness. Finally, he was killed by lethal injection on August 14th, 1941.
A striking contrast to Kolbe’s life is that of Rudolph Hoess, the S.S. Officer and Commandant of Auschwitz. Hoess was raised in a strict Catholic family. In his autobiography he relates that a priest violated the seal of Confession and told his father about a sin he had confessed. He later denied his faith when he joined the Nazi party. After the war he was tried as a war criminal and executed by hanging at Auschwitz on April 16, 1947, right next to the crematorium where St. Maximilian’s remains were incinerated.
Four days before he died, Rudolph Hoess acknowledged that he had “sinned gravely against humanity” and he asked forgiveness from God and the Polish people. Shortly before this he had returned to the Catholic Church and went to Confession and received Viaticum from Fr. Wladyslaw Lohn, S.J. No doubt the martyr of charity had asked his beloved Mediatrix of All Graces to grant the grace of conversion to his enemy.
“I have conquered the world.” (Jn 16:33)
–Fr. Peter