After many years, the lectures of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe have finally been published in German. To mark this event, a symposium on St. Maximilian will take place on March 4, 2024, in Blieskastel, Germany.
In the 1960s and 1990s, the Conventual Franciscans of Germany made certain attempts to publish these important writings by the martyr from Poland. However, they always ended in failure. The start of a happy ending took shape when a friar from Poland, who works daily in Germany, discovered the history of these attempts in the archives of the friary in Würzburg, Germany.
“This discovery gave me a strong impulse to try to carry out what the Conventual Franciscans of the Province of St. Elisabeth in Germany had dreamed about, planned and talked about on more than one occasion,” Friar Hieronim JOPEK joyfully recounted.
He explained further: “In December of 2018, in Steyl, Holland, during a plenary meeting of the Major Superiors of the Centralis Europae Foederatio (CEF), I presented an initiative for the development of the Militia of the Immaculata in the German-speaking areas of the Federation. At the heart of this initiative was a project to complete the translation of St. Maximilian’s lectures. The Minister Provincial of Germany, Friar Andreas MURK, and the Provincial Delegates working in Germany, very kindly and willingly accepted this project.”
He continued: “The Delegations of the Provinces of Cracow and Warsaw took up the entire burden of this project. Thanks to the kindness and support of the Delegate of the Province of Cracow, Friar Stanisław ŚLIWIŃSKI, and the experience and commitment of the Delegate of the Province of Warsaw, Friar Andrzej IWANICKI, we can now enjoy the lectures of St. Maximilian M. Kolbe in German, published under the title, ‘Impulse.’” Friar Hieronim also expressed his hope that the publication of these Kolbean texts will inspire a new phase of work aimed at developing the Militia of the Immaculata in the German-speaking areas.
Friar Jan M. SZEWEK
