The Polish Marian Franciscan saint, St. Maximilian Kolbe (b.1894- d.1941), was a tireless devotee and servant-son of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This saint, if he could speak to us today, would impart to us the same advice which he gave in his lifetime via his magazine, radio, and newspaper apostolates: he would tell us to entrust ourselves, our families, our countries, and our world, to Jesus through the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Immaculata, and allow her to provide the Good Remedy of a Good Mother. He said all this best himself:
We cannot take rest as long as there is in the world one soul in danger, who does not yet know the Immaculata. Our human frailty, limited resources or any other worldly difficulty must not restrain us; let us confide in the Immaculata, let us place ourselves truly in Her hands and She will continue to win the battles of God, as at Lepanto, as at Vienna. We must place our Lady in every soul so that from every soul sin be expelled and Jesus introduced. Whoever finds the Immaculata, finds Jesus.
The Immaculata is the conqueress of the devil, she is the Mother of God, always united to God, the full of grace, the masterpiece of grace with every holiness and perfection attainable by a human creature. The Immaculata is the one who in Her unbounded and respectful love wills the glory of God, fights the battles of God for overcoming evil, for the triumph of good, crushes the head of hell’s monster and destroys all heresies in the whole world. …May all nourish themselves on this truth so as to enter into the thought of God who willed the Incarnation to give us much more than what we had lost in Adam, and who in the Incarnation willed the Immaculata to remind us of the innocent man created by God and of the vision of an innocent world, according to the plan of God. To God all glory, to God our respectful love and our praise, who willed thus to exalt and glorify the Immaculata, Mother of this dismembered and sinful humanity, our Hope, always. ~ Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Conference (Rome, 1937), source
Yes, the Immaculata reminds us of the innocent man created by God and the vision of an innocent world, according to the plan of God (paraphrase Kolbe, above). It is no wonder that we love her, and hope that every soul might come to know her, Mother of this dismembered and sinful humanity, our Hope, always (paraphrase, Kolbe, above).
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Immaculata, pray for us!
May St. Maximilian, pray for us!
~SCF
Link: the consecration prayer of St. Maximilian Kolbe, here.
