continuation...

The Mariology of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe
by Fr. James McCurry, O.F.M. Conv.

The collection of Kolbe's writings gathered into several volumes contain everything from Kolbe's reminiscences with his mother about Polish Christmas customs, to periodical articles on the existence of God; from inquiries of a Milwaukee pastor about radio transmitters, to notations in his daily Mass Register; from sketches of interplanetary spaceships, to a significant schema for a projected book on the Immaculate Conception.

This potpourri reflects not only the breadth of Kolbe's concerns, but more so the practical and apostolic orientation to which all of his theological speculations were ultimately directed. Theological speculation was for Kolbe a font for apostolic practice. An analysis of the speculative thought in his corpus, while valuable in and of itself, is nevertheless incomplete when separated from its practical application.

The first question to be posed in surveying Kolbe's thought is at once simple yet crucial. What is his starting point? Beginning with the formula of "Consecration to the Immaculate," composed in 1917, through his final meditation on the Immaculate Conception, dictated to his secretary only hours before the Nazis arrested him in 1941, Kolbe's writings exhibit a singular preoccupation with one all-consuming objective: to "extend as far as possible the blessed kingdom of the most Sacred Heart of Jesus."

Lest this aim be construed merely as a pious aspiration, rather than a dynamic principle governing Kolbe's thought and action, I shall for the moment skip over the intermediate phases of Kolbe's thought to his final synthesis of 1941:

Everywhere in the world we notice action and the reaction which is equal but contrary to it; departure and return; going away and coming back; separation and reunion. The separation always looks forward to union, which is creative... First, God creates the universe; that is something like a separation. Creatures, by following the natural law implanted in them by God, reach their perfection, become like him. Intelligent creatures love him in a conscious manner; through this love they unite themselves more and more closely with him, and so find their way back to him.

In this synthesis Kolbe articulated, through the action-reaction analogy, his conviction that the Kingdom of Christ would be held together by a powerful force: love. Such love, however, would find its fullest realization in the person of Mary Immaculate: