~ So....how was Lourdes? ~

by Tina~in_ut

Have you ever gone somewhere on vacation to see something specific and were pleasantly surprised to find something else? My sister just got back from France where she spent a month learning French. Each weekend she planned a trip to somewhere she'd never been: Amsterdam, Lisieux, Normandy, and Lourdes.

For those of you who don't know, many people make pilgrimages to Lourdes because of the healing waters. Mary is said to have appeared to St. Bernadette there. Bernadette was asked to dig in the mud, and days later, a spring began to flow from that spot. Many very ill people have been cured of their ailments after bathing in the springs. Although I found my sister's visit there interesting, it was her story of Maximilian Kolbe that fascinated me the most.

While waiting in line to see the house that Bernadette lived in as a child, the Polish seminarian who was showing my sister's group around, asked if they wanted to see the Maximilian Kolbe Center (the Franciscan monastery) which was next door. He was very excited to find a fellow seminarian who spoke English and could tell the story of Kolbe.

Maximilian Kolbe was born on January 8, 1894 in what is now Poland, to a father of German decent and a Polish mother. He claims to have had a vision of Mary as a child and was subsequently influenced by her the rest of his life. In 1918, he became a Franciscan priest. He was sent to Warsaw where he founded and supervised a monastery, a seminary, a radio station, and several other organizations and publications. Between 1930 and 1936, he went on several missions to Japan, founding a monastery in Nagasaki. He was advised to build his monastery on the side of the mountain best suited to be in tune with nature, but went against that advise and built it on the other side. Because of this, his monastery was saved when the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The force of the blast from the bomb hit the other side of the mountain, saving the monastery and his fellow priests.

In 1936, Fr. Kolbe was recalled back to Poland. By 1939, in the midst of WWII, he began to organize a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, among whom were 2,000 Jews. The Friars housed, clothed, and fed them all. Fr. Kolbe also spoke out against the Nazi's at his radio station and wrote about them in his review, The Knight of the Immaculate. On February 17, 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Pawaik prison in Warsaw. On May 28th, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. In July of that same year, during the evening roll-call, it was found that three men had escaped, one of which was from Fr. Kolbe's barracks. As was the practice, 10 men were chosen to be starved to death in the Bunker (the underground starvation cell), in order to deter further escape attempts. One of those men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "Oh, my poor wife, my poor children. I shall never see them again." It was then that Fr. Kolbe volunteered to take his place. From several eyewitness accounts, it is said that Fr. Kolbe led the men in prayer, saying the rosary and singing songs. He was outwardly calm and, after two weeks, he was the only one of the ten still alive. Needing the cell in order to torture others, it was decided that Fr. Kolbe would be given an injection of carbolic acid. He was murdered on August 14, 1941 at the age of 47. His remains were cremated the next day on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.

Fr. Kolbe was beatified (the first step towards sainthood in the Catholic Church) in 1971. On October 10, 1982, in the presence of Franciszek Gajowniczek, he was canonized a saint by the Polish Pope, John Paul II. His feast day is August 14th and he is the patron saint of drug addicts, prisoners, journalists, and the pro-life movement. Pope John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century". Franciszek Gajowniczek lived 53 years after Fr Kolbe saved his life. His wife, Helena, survived the war, but his sons were killed in Russia in 1945, before his release.

My sister loves to tell about her travels and I love listening. I thought I knew what I was going to hear when I asked, "So....how was Lourdes?"