Niepokalanów – where everything belongs to the Immaculate

Dzika Figa in a place of self-giving

There are places that build you up.

And there are places that disarm you.

Niepokalanów is one of them.

Because when you stand in the place where Maximilian Maria Kolbe lived,
you suddenly see very clearly:

how much a person can give.

And how very much I do not.

---

The Immaculate – everything begins with her

At Niepokalanów you can feel the grace, the mystery and the power of love.

It is the love of a Mother for Jesus, and for her adopted sons and daughters, returned by the Franciscan Order and by Father Maximilian Kolbe.

Mary.

Everything here leads to her.
And through her – to Jesus.

Maximilian Maria Kolbe had no doubts:

„Never be afraid of loving the Immaculate too much. You will never love her more than Jesus did.”

At Niepokalanów that sentence stops being a pious quotation.
It becomes a decision.

Two crowns

Little Rajmund Kolbe (later Maximilian Maria Kolbe) was praying before an image of the Mother of God.

And then he saw her.

Mary was holding two crowns in her hands:

one white
and one red

She asked him:

which do you choose?

The white one meant purity.
The red one – martyrdom.

She did not say: choose one.

She simply asked.

---

And that boy, who as yet had no „mission”, no plans, no history –

answered:

that he wanted both.

---

He did not yet know what that meant.

But his life afterwards showed it exactly:

purity
and self-giving to the very end

A father who chose more

Father Maximilian was not „simply a good man”.

He was radical with himself, and he demanded the same of his brothers.

Given to the end.
Organised.
Creative.
Unbelievably hard-working.

He founded Niepokalanów – a place of life, prayer, work and evangelisation.
He published a press.
He built.
He created.

Without respite. In enormous modesty and austerity of life.

And he entrusted it all to the Immaculate.

„The Immaculate is our Mother – the most perfect road to Jesus.”

This was not theory.

It was life.

---

A chapel that stops you in your tracks

The Adoration chapel at Niepokalanów…

It is hard to describe.

Silence.
Beauty.
Presence.

And her.

The Immaculate.

A Mother who carries God within her. She still shelters Jesus beneath her Heart.

In this place there is no need to say anything.

You simply remain.

Fullness of happiness, fullness of love, fullness of family.

---

Love that costs

The story of Father Maximilian is not an „ordinary” one. Almost two weeks without food or water bore witness to the wondrous relationship between this humble saint and the Mother of God.

„Hatred is not a creative force. Love is the creative force.”

At Niepokalanów that sentence sounds different.

Because here you know that Someone stayed with him to the end.

---

The Miraculous Medal – a rescue for souls

At Rue du Bac, where a young nun, Catherine Labouré, knelt before Mary.

And Mary came with an immense grace and a promise.

Sister Catherine then heard the instruction to have a medal struck according to the pattern she had seen, together with the assurance of special graces for those who would wear it with faith and pray the invocation:

„O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

---

And that sign went out into the world.

Quiet.
Unassuming.

As though it were nothing.

---

But it was only many years later that someone saw something more in it.

Maximilian Maria Kolbe, in love with Mary.

He saw in it a rescue for souls.

---

In Rome, in a world that was turning away from God ever more loudly, he understood one thing:

that Mary had already given the tool

and that people… were not using it

---

And then he did not start writing theories.

He did not stop at admiration.

---

He began to act.

He handed out medals.
He sent them out.
He gave them to people who were far from God.

Because he believed that even if someone did not understand –

grace would find its way anyway.

---

And so the Militia Immaculatae came into being.

Not as a „pious” movement.

But as an answer:

give yourself to Mary
let her act
do not try to control everything

---

A patron who is no coincidence

Father Maximilian Kolbe is the patron saint of our firstborn son.

And today I see that this is no coincidence.

It is a gift.

Because he is the patron of:

• courage

• decision

• self-giving

• and of a love that does not calculate

---

Lord, how is it possible…

I walked around Niepokalanów with one thought:

Lord, how is it possible that I have seen so little so far?

And at the same time a second thought:

how is it possible that you bring us here – sometimes late, but always in time.

---

Niepokalanów is a museum too

Father Maximilian’s room.

His treasures and his passion for engineering and technology. Everyday objects. Machines and constructions.

In another room, a screening of a film about the last days of Father Maximilian’s life. Beautiful, heartrending, vivid – because it is in 3D.

And finally, in the fire station, an exhibition of the Holy Father’s Popemobile.

It is a wonderful place for whole families, not only for the Eucharist but for spending time together.

I recommend it with all my heart.

We came back enchanted, in love and blessed.