DURING THE almost eight centuries since the death of St. Francis, many of the Poverello's followers have taken up the missionary paths which he opened. For this reason, the Franciscan Order in all its branches was and still remains the strongest missionary group in the history of the Church.The fundamental motivation of the missionary action of St. Francis was based on his submergence in the highest degree in the most high God and in Christ incarnated and crucified for us. It was from this love that arose his desire to save all men. St. Maximilian also began from a mystical base, but he added a characteristic of his own: complete surrender to the Immaculata in order better to win souls for Christ the Lord. To Conquer the World for Christ Through the lmmaculata Consecration to the Immaculata was carried out by Father Kolbe to the highest degree. As a result there arose necessarily the need to communicate this passion to all souls, to conquer the world for Christ through the Immaculata. The Franciscan missionary ideal which began and developed from the little church of St. Mary of the Angels in Assisi, and the constant devotion of the Franciscan Order to the Immaculata, found in this Knight that zeal, that courage, that boldness to dare everything. The genius of St. Francis was brought to life in him for our time. The Mariology of Father Kolbe is not something sentimental or added on to the work of creation, but it is based on the love which unites God with man and man with God. As St. Francis sang about the love of God in "The Praises of the Most High God," so "Father Kolbe accentuates that God is Love and in calling creatures into existence, He wants from them a response to His love with a love which will be as great as possible. Only one creature gave God an 'equal' (total) response which is the apex of love in all creation. This creature, the most perfect of existing beings, is Mary." (Swieciski 315) Daring the Unthinkable The Seraphic Father told his friars: "The Lord will fulfill his designs and will keep his promises." So too Saint Maximilian dared the unthinkable because he considered himself merely an instrument in the hands of the Immaculata, who would bring her plans to completion. "The action of Mary is a most perfect action of the Holy Spirit," and He, "through the Immaculate Virgin, manifests outwardly his own participation in the work of redemption." Niepokalanow would never have been founded, and there would never have been a Kolbean missionary activity without this Marian theological base that we have scarcely touched upon and which deserves to be studied in depth and better understood.
The missionary action of St. Francis was the witness of his life - the development of fraternity and the spirit of evangelical poverty. We see with admiration and wonder, and with a certain nostalgia, that St. Maximilian had followed faithfully and firmly in the footsteps of St. Francis in the most absolute poverty and in the heroic witness of living the fullness of Franciscan fraternity in his country and in the missions. Francis was in love with poverty in its highest ascetical and mystical sense. While Kolbe, son of the industrial age, gives to Most High Poverty a working sense: "O truly holy, very holy is our Franciscan poverty, the poverty of Niepokalanow. . . . The Immaculata is the end, and poverty is the capital: these are the two things which Niepokalanow cannot ever abandon under any pretext. . . . Only the limitless fund of Divine Providence can cover the colossal expenses of the battle for the conquest of the entire world for the Immaculata."  Evangelizing by Example of Personal Holiness Francis went to the Orient with five companions, giving witness to fraternity "by their example of holiness and perfection of religious life." Father Kolbe founded his "City of the Immaculate" not as a great center of activity and industry, but as a fraternity united in unconditional self giving to the Immaculata, through a "total exclusion of any reservation in regard to food, dress, occupation, state (brother or cleric), place (in one's own country or among the enemies of the faith where perhaps certain death awaited them)." "Our community has a style of life a bit heroic which it ought to be if it truly wishes to acquire its predetermined objective - not only to defend the faith, but to contribute to the salvation of souls, with a fearless attack, not paying any attention to themselves, to win over to the Immaculata one soul after another, one outpost after another." Francis preached and communicated "the peace of the Lord" to the men of his time, and Father Kolbe always began from this fundamental Franciscan message, to bring peace by capturing the heart of man through love. St. Maximilian sums it up in these inspired words, "Hatred divides, separates, and destroys, while on the contrary love unites, brings peace, and builds. Is it not to be wondered at, then, that only love succeeds in making men perfect? Therefore, only that religion which teaches the love of God and neighbor can perfect men." Wishing to work actively to communicate the love of God to his brothers, Father Kolbe founded a great movement, "The Knights of the Immaculata" (Militia Imrnaculatae) which he describes in this way in one of his articles:
"It is called, of the Immaculata because its members are consecrated without reserve to the Most Holy Immaculate Virgin Mary so that she may work in them and by them and pour out through them on other persons the grace of supernatural light, strength, and happiness. Moreover, it is called Knights because it cannot permit itself to rest but rather intends to conquer, through love, all hearts for the Immaculata and, by means of her, for the divine heart of Jesus and, finally, for our heavenly Father." Anticipating Modern Evangelizing Activity
The missionary spirit of St. Maximilian, based as it is on the ideals of St. Francis and reinforced by the chivalrous and apostolic attachment to the Immaculata, has produced marvelous results and has indicated some lines of action which anticipate modern evangelizing activity in the Church. In chapter twelve of his Second Rule, Francis indicated three norms for the friars who wished to follow him in his missionary action. Father Kolbe considered all his work missionary and so bound all the friars who consecrated themselves to the same chapter of the Rule:"Our father, St. Francis, is the model for the missionary; his example, his Rule is highly missionary, and it allows the greatest thrust to be directed to the salvation and the sanctification of souls. The "City" with its vast program of winning the entire world for the Immaculata is subordinate to Chapter XII of the Rule, and, under the threat of losing its reason for existence and the betrayal of its ideal, it cannot change its own finality.
"I also imagine that those who have consecrated themselves without limits to the Immaculata, . . . will ask their Superiors to permit them to bind themselves absolutely with a vow to go, for the sake of the Immaculata, anywhere holy obedience will send them, be it to the most difficult mission and an encounter with certain death. In that way, they would join to the three religious vows this one also, even though the Rule does not expressly oblige them." The saints can be judged to be dreamers, but it is encouraging to us to view what this man was able to accomplish in only twenty years of activity. But it was nothing compared to what he wanted to do, "Concerning projects for the future, I have in mind the purpose of the Knights of the Immaculata - that is, the winning of the whole world for the Immaculata - of developing our outpost in the most vigorous possible way so that the Japanese Knight magazine can be delivered as soon as possible to every Japanese home. But at the same time, I am also thinking of beginning the Knight in the Chinese language. But I am also thinking of India, of Annam, of the Syrian 'basin' for the following languages: Arabic, Turkish, Hebrew. "Nevertheless, I am not thinking of giving up publishing the Knight in English, etc., until the entire world belongs to the Immaculata. At the same time, however, I hold it indispensable to multiply "Cities of the Immaculata" in Europe . . . in Germany, in France, in Spain, in England, and in the other countries in which our confreres are few or not found at all; and afterwards in other countries as well." Understanding the Needs and Temper of the Times Just as St. Francis understood the needs and the movements of his time and knew how to use them, sublimating them to the praise of the Most High God, in love for peace, so too Father Kolbe, living in an industrial age and basing himself on the same principles of St. Francis, knew how to transform work, machines, and men for the glory of God. Anticipating the Ideas of Evangelii Nuntiandi of the Second Vatican Council, Saint Maximilian made himself and his followers available to the local hierarchy and placed himself at the service of the local Church. He asked only for the liberty to witness to a heroic life of fraternity and to be able to spread the gospel through the written word.
In the postulatory letter for his beatification by the Bishop of Nagasaki, his Excellency Paul Yagamuchi, we read:
"On April 24, 1930, Father Kolbe arrived unexpectedly at Nagasaki with three friars. This was, without a doubt, an arrival in conformity with a poor missionary of Jesus. The most noteworthy characteristic of his activity certainly was the firmness of his faith, the foundation of his unshakeable confidence, thanks to which he was a man of sacrifice and a missionary filled with great zeal. The work of Father Kolbe was certainly and remains still a wonder in view of its rapid progress in the Japanese world."
His preoccupation with vocations and the formation of native religious is one of Fr. Kolbe's constant concerns and is expressed in various letters. He wrote from Japan to the Niepokalanow community: "Launch an attack of prayer for vocations for Japanese religious brothers because without them there can be no guarantee for the future. And also for vocations to the minor seminary and absolutely for the major seminary. You are numerous; therefore it will be easier for you to implore insistently, beseeching the Immaculata." Kolbe knew how to find and to train his collaborators because he was not an individualist but worked well with others and was able to arouse their enthusiasm and involve them in his ideals. He never appeared to be a colonizer even if he ardently dreamed of conquering the world; he was a lover who desired to communicate the beauty and riches of his faith through the printed word and the media of social communication, which are free forms of dialogue. And he truly held a dialogue with everyone, especially with the pagans. The Japanese magazine, the Kishi, was addressed not only to Catholics but to pagans, to Protestants, and to other non-Catholics.
In the beginning the readers received it with curiosity, then with unusual appreciation to such an extent that a good number of them received the grace of holy baptism. Patiently ingrafting the Church of Christ among the pagans "without abusing the baptismal water" - this was the original method of Father Kolbe, who trusted in God totally through the Immaculata, but at the same time did not spare himself and did everything which was in his power. Young Churches Not Only Object but Subject of Church's Mission The Conciliar Decree Ad Gentes speaks extensively of the missionary activity of individual Churches and urges that the young Churches be not simply the object but also the subject of mission. Father Kolbe anticipated this decree in practice because the Polish Niepokalanow substantially helped with manpower and materials the birth of the Japanese "City" which, on the other hand, contributed to the enrichment of the missionary spirit in all of Poland. His Excellency John Wosinski, Auxiliary Bishop of Plotsk in Poland, in an article dedicated to the missionary contribution of Father Kolbe, writes: ". . .what is taken up in the Conciliar Decree, Ad Gentes, was verified, in as much as the young missionary Churches reanimate by their presence the older Churches from which they receive help. In fact, the Japanese Niepokalanow greatly enlivened and made the Polish "City of the Immaculate" more missionary, whether throughout Poland or beyond its borders through the ranks of the Knights of the Immaculata. . . . We see here Father Maximilian not only as a missionary but as one fully dedicated to organizing help for the missions and missionaries and as an apostle who wished to make all of us in Poland missionaries." The same Bishop summarizes his analysis of the missionary characteristic of Father Kolbe in this way: "He is for us a splendid example of the complete Christian according to our time - one who left nothing untried to exploit the 'signs of the times' and the possibility of the moment. For this reason, he is so rich in his personality and so difficult to fully understand. How much spiritual energy was contained in his frail body! How much spiritual good was accomplished in his short life!
"This total Franciscan, religious, priest, martyr, is a magnificent example whom the Immaculata raised up as the apostolic model, the ideal missionary of our times!"
Most Reverend Vitale M. Bommarco is the Archbishop Emeritus of Gorizia, Italy, and former Minister General of the Friars Minor Conventual. The above article is taken from the book, "Kolbe - Saint of the Immaculate" published by the Academy of the Immaculate in the United States.
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