The Assumption and the Crematorium

by Jillian Cooke, MTh, MAPM
Fr. Kolbe Missionary of the Immaculata

It was a very cold September 30, 2013. It was a clear and brilliant day, with leaves tossed about on a chilly breeze. The place was nearly empty, as it was early in the morning on a weekday and after the summer rush. It was eerily gorgeous.

I was in Auschwitz concentration camp. I stood only feet away from the chimney where, 72 years ago, St. Maximilian's ashes would have escaped. I looked up to the blue sky and cringed thinking how the ashes would have blotted out the now luminous sun, and wrapped my jacket closer around me, as I imagined the ashes being caught up and tossed about by the breeze. To me, this was the ultimate mockery, the final hideous offense, the last place the Nazi regime would wield its temporary might over a precious soul. It was, however, also the final victory for St. Maximilian Kolbe.

As I sat near the crematorium, I marveled that on what would be the feast of the Assumption, August 15th, in the year 1941, St. Maximilian Kolbe was obliterated. There was nothing left of the man, as far as the Nazi regime and evil could tell. His friary was in a shambles, his printing presses stopped and stolen, his family dispersed, and his body no more. But, yet, I sat there near the crematorium as a testimony that the Nazi regime - evil - did not win and will not win. I sat there in great awe and with great love for a man that I never met and whose tomb I can never visit. I sat there burning with a faint glimmer of the very fire of love that burned in his own heart. St. Maximilian was not obliterated - this was for sure - but why not?

I remembered his words, not verbatim, but the spirit of them: "Even if they (evil) should destroy our friary and we should be scattered across the earth, even if we should be deprived of the most basic means of apostolate, if the Immaculata reigns in our heart then Niepokolanow will live on." The City of the Immaculata was not made of stone, but of zealous charity, obedience, suffering willed out of love, and prayer. It cannot be destroyed, because the Immaculata cannot be destroyed!

The Assumption came crashing into my meditation. The Immaculata can never be destroyed. In fact, when the decay of death should have begun its process on her earthly body, it was transformed to that of a glorified body and assumed into heaven. A heart so united and so absorbed by God could not know decay. A heart so dedicated to Her reign and so captivated by her beauty could not suffer the limits of death. Our Mother Mary, assumed into heaven, and our brother Fr. Maximilian Kolbe give us hope that is only surpassed by its source:  the Resurrection. The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the legacy of St. Maximilian Kolbe shine forth as reminders to us of the hope that is ours, and of the sheer unstoppable power of the goodness of God.