Triumph of the Heart

Most Catholics have heard about St. Maximilian Kolbe and his martyrdom in the death camp of Auschwitz in Poland during the Second World War. His story is of an incredibly beautiful life founded on extraordinary love. His love for Jesus Christ led him into the Order of Conventual Franciscans as a young man. His love for Mary Immaculate inspired him to found the Militia of the Immaculata and publish the magazine Knight of the Immaculata to bring many souls to Christ through Our Lady. In May of 1941 he was sent to the death camp of Auschwitz because of his zealous work for souls and his outspoken criticism of the Nazi policy attacking the Church and horrific treatment of the Jews. In July of that same year a prisoner escaped. The Nazi protocol required that ten men be put into a starvation bunker in retaliation for any one prisoner who escaped.  As all of the prisoners were lined up for the selection of the ten who would be sent to the bunker, the Nazi officer picked them one after another. As the tenth man, Franciszek Gajowniczek, was chosen, he began to cry out, “No...no...I have a wife and children.” St. Maximilian’s love and compassion led him to offer his own life to spare the life of Franciszek. St. Maximilian stepped out of the line of Auschwitz prisoners to volunteer himself with the statement, “I am a Catholic priest.”
 
I recently went to the new film about St. Maximilian entitled Triumph of the Heart. This beautiful movie refers to many different aspects of the saint’s life but focuses mostly his last 14 days spent in the starvation bunker. His loving and faith-filled interaction with the nine men confined with him illustrates his ability to touch the hearts of those poor souls who were in spiritual, emotional and physical agony. St. Maximilian was able to give them hope from the love that filled his heart and the faith that gave him light to illuminate their way amidst terrible darkness.
 
Certainly the film showcased the selfless sacrifice made by St. Maximilian in laying down his life for a brother as the climax of his living out God’s Will. Triumph of the Heart also highlighted that his martyrdom came because evil people wanted to silence him. His proclamation of the truth of the Faith threatened them and their evil ideology. He wished for them no ill or harm. He only wanted to offer them the love of God and the message of the Gospel. He wanted them to know the mercy of Jesus Christ. The bunker became a battle ground. It became clear that, in that bunker, the cosmic struggle between good and evil was being fought. St. Maximilian offered his enemies words of truth and love. The Nazis offered him beatings and abuse. St. Maximilian offered the Nazis an example of self-sacrifice and peace. They offered him starvation and death. His love and truth confronted their hatred and abuse. And so, they killed him in order to silence him. The battle was between the Woman (Our Lady) and her seed and the serpent (Satan) and his seed. (cf. Gen 3:15) They show up in the film just as they show up when hatred tries to kill an silence children of God.  The Woman crushes the serpent’s head with her heel!
 
What does this all mean for us? Do deeds of violence and killing achieve their end?  Which won, the forces of evil or good? Let’s see…St. Maximilian was martyred by an injection of carbolic acid on the eve of the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, August 14, 1941. The SS officer who oversaw St. Maximilian’s murder, Karl Fritsch, died in desperation by suicide in Berlin in 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing. Fritsch is seen as a nefarious person, a monster, and largely forgotten. St. Maximilian was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II and is universally recognized and venerated as a saint of charity and a devoted son of the Mother of God, a beacon of light showing us the way to heaven. The evil acts of violence and murder never work. When they seek to silence the truth spoken in love, they fail. So, it is in every age, even in our own. Violence and the killing of others always fail to silence the truth of God’s love.
 
St. Maximilian Kolbe and others like him who seek to love God and their brothers and sisters inspire others to lovingly and boldly proclaim the truth. After all, the Lord Jesus likewise died on the Cross because others sought to silence and destroy Him. Two thousand years later we still clearly hear the message of Jesus and recognize Him in our midst in the Holy Eucharist. Eighty years later we continue to marvel at the example of the courage and love of St. Maximilian Kolbe and feel united with him in the Communion of Saints. With great love, let us embrace truth in love. It will set us free! It never fails!
 
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh