The Tenebrae of Maximilian Kolbe

First posted at Crisis Magazine, this phenomenal review of a new film about St Maximilian Kolbe takes the darkness of Auschwitz and fills us all with a glowing hope.

September 12, 2025 by Sheryl Collmer

During hours of darkness in Holy Week, the Church observes the peculiar liturgy of Tenebrae. As the Office progresses, the candles on the lampstand are extinguished one by one, until darkness is total. It’s a mournful liturgy, to express the desolation of the Church as the Light of the World is about to be eclipsed. 

So goes the Passion of St. Maximilian Kolbe in the new movie Triumph of the Heart.  It begins in the darkest place we can imagine — the concentration camp of Auschwitz under Nazi control. It then descends into an even darker underground bunker, where the candles of Kolbe’s life and those of his fellow prisoners are snuffed out, one by one.  

You’ll want to see this movie for the same reason you love Tenebrae; it touches the deepest, rawest places of your heart with the breath of holy salvation. 

The interior of the bunker, redolent of the many who’d preceded them in death there, is a dark cathedral, with cement vaults and arches. Indeed, the sordid room is about to truly become an altar of sacrifice. Most of the room, and the figures in it, are cloaked in dark gloom but for the single source of light from one grated window. There is, in fact, only one source of light, and Kolbe, with his constant prayer, will not allow it to go out.  

Catholics generally know the story of St. Maximilian, a Polish Franciscan friar imprisoned by the occupying Nazis as a political prisoner for his newspaper, magazine, and radio broadcasts that brought hope to the Polish people. The Nazis regarded Poles as animals, targeted for extinction. Kolbe, mockingly tagged the “radio priest,” was singled out for especially brutal treatment. The Germans saw the propaganda value in breaking the man who’d held out hope to the Polish people, and they made the most of his captivity. 

Then, in July 1941, an anonymous prisoner escaped. The standard retaliation was to condemn 10 other prisoners to be starved to death. The commandant himself, SS officer Karl Fritzsch, came to select the 10 men who would die in reprisal. The last man selected was Franciszek Gajowniczek, who cried out to be spared for the sake of his wife and children.  

At that point, Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward into the forever-memory of the Church and offered himself as the 10th man. Strangely, the commandant accepted the proposal, perhaps seeing it as a potential propaganda coup that would pluck him out of the filthy Polish backwater and restore him to the Fatherland.  

This substitutionary redemption, one prisoner for another, is what we most remember about Kolbe. But that was only the first few minutes of the story. His passion was yet to come, as the 10 men were driven into the underground starvation bunker.  It took one moment for Kolbe to step forward; it took another 14 days to hang the flesh on that sacrifice. That’s 20,000 minutes of doubt lacerating the edges of the mind, 20,000 opportunities to give into despair, 20,000 chances to wish you’d thought of a different way. This is martyrdom in slow motion. 

Tenebrae begins. Ten human candles are on the lampstand: despairing, angry, defeated men, too long in the camp to have held on to much of their pre-war humanity. Fights and fits of fury break out. But Kolbe, who had spent his life in strict spiritual discipline and had already endured much violence at the hands of the more sadistic guards, remains preternaturally calm. From the beginning, he besought his Lord and Lady to show him how to help the others win back their ruined humanity and die, if they must, like champions.  

Normally, a person can survive without water for two to three days. But these 10 men were already sick, starving, and weak going in. Prolonged lack of water, in addition to torturing the will, causes the brain to contract and the blood to thicken so that the vital organs begin to lose function. Starvation from food accelerates organ failure, as muscle is cannibalized. Cognitive decline, hallucinations, and psychosis may follow. Men in the starvation bunkers had been known to feed on the bodies of those who had already died, to preserve life for one more day.  

Kolbe would not allow this to happen. His tender ministry to the weakened, absorbing their anger, urging them to tell their stories, and leading prayers and songs, kept the men from slipping into the abyss.  

The first candle was extinguished in just a day or so, then another. A few joined Kolbe’s “militia,” which he’d proposed on the first day to no response. Another candle guttered out. The guards were placing bets on the pace of the deaths. After a week, five men were still alive, against all odds, and the commandant was furious. They should have all been dead by now. The troublesome priest was making a fool of him. 

The Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, called Fritzsch to inquire what the holdup was. Kolbe was known both inside and outside the camp, all over Poland, and his seeming ability to withstand death was a slap in the face of the Third Reich, which, after all, consisted of vastly superior human beings than the Polish pigs. Fritzsch is doomed to lose this battle. 

The Polish actor who plays St. Kolbe is simply brilliant. He is strong, like the leader of a militia must be, and also as gentle as a mother with a child who’s fallen in the street. This role could have gone too far one way or the other, making Maximilian unapproachably severe or ineffectively saccharine, but Marcin Kwaśny delivers the most convincing and realistic portrayal of a saint I’ve ever seen in a movie.  

His face plays out all the intensity of Kolbe’s refined character. When mocked, he examines himself for any truth in the gibe, humbly owns it, and is humbly willing to forgive and be forgiven. He’s guilelessly open to friendship, which, it turns out, is what these poor, ravaged men most need. 

What makes the difference between hopeless, animalistic men with no memory of their own humanity or anyone else’s is friendship. Brotherhood. Patriotism. Forgiveness. They desperately need to be men again. That this could be accomplished in the very crucible of hell is the miracle of Kolbe’s love.  

The director of photography made the most of the single source of light, the grated window. With dramatic compositions of light and dark, it tells the whole eternal story of sin and death, and the one source of goodness that overcomes it. Through the window can be heard the horror going on outside, some of it engineered specifically to break down Fr. Kolbe. The prisoners on the outside carry news of the inexplicable singing and praying coming from the bunker, reviving hope all over the camp. The window becomes the conduit of courage. 

There is no “happy ending” in the conventional sense. Tenebrae plays out; the liturgy ends in darkness. But you will be surprised to feel something like joy when it’s finished.  Triumph of the Heart  is a masterpiece and a miracle.  

Catholic movies have come a long way in recent years.  Triumph of the Heart  has all the markings of a major motion picture, with flawless acting, expressive lighting and sets, moving sound design, and, of course, a penetrating story. It is exquisite in all its particulars, worthy of Kolbe himself; and I do not say that lightly.  

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Catholic movies have come a long way in recent years.  Triumph of the Heart  has all the markings of a major motion picture, with flawless acting, expressive lighting and sets, moving sound design, and, of course, a penetrating story. *** Tweet This

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A movie about slow death in one of the ugliest places on earth was never going to sell in Hollywood, so the writer/director, Anthony D’Ambrosio, began a Kickstarter campaign. The final budget clocked in well under half a million dollars, a poverty-level film. And yet it plays like a major symphony, impeccably. I daresay this movie will be a startling anomaly to industry insiders, who spend hundreds and thousands of times that budget to make far less lovely and consequential films.  

See this movie in a theater so that you are immersed in it. It’s the only way to do it justice. You can’t enter into Tenebrae with your phone dinging or ambient light. Since there’s not a large distributor, this movie will depend primarily on community demand for screenings.  

Check the website to see if there are already tickets available in your area for the September 12 opening. If not, consider hosting a screening. The advance buzz is enough that you shouldn’t have any problem filling the theater. See the instructions here.  

Watch the official trailer here. 

In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death… 

— from the Canticle of Zechariah, Luke 1:78-79

Author Sheryl Collmer

Sheryl Collmer is a semi-retired business consultant. She holds a Master’s in Theological Studies from the University of Dallas, as well as an MBA. From her home in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, she studies homesteading, history, and the currents in the Church.

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ADDENDUM by Katie Prejean McGrady

The professional part of my brain is skeptical of almost everything that crosses my desk. And it’s a lot that comes across my desk to review or share or promote.

So in my skepticism, I was fairly convinced Triumph of the Heart would be slog of a film that just made me sad. It’s set in a Nazi death camp, after all. We know the end already. They’re going to die.

Oh how happy I am to be so wrong.

This film is so full of hope, of joy, of peace, it’s startling how you’ll feel the range of human emotions. I have never been so moved by something on a screen, and no movie has ever made me want to get to heaven as much as this one.

You need to see this movie. You must.

The Doors That Have Unlocked

By Father Gordon MacRae and Felix Carroll | Marian Helper

Winter 2016-2017

At the outset of the extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis decreed that prisoners who pass through the doors of their cells may receive the indulgence usually attached to passing through a designated Holy Door if they turn their hearts to God’s mercy. With that in mind, we reached out to Fr. Gordon J. MacRae, an inmate at New Hampshire State Prison, to share with us his thoughts on living the faith during this Jubilee Year. Father MacRae writes for the award-winning blog TheseStoneWalls.com at the behest of the late Cardinal Avery Dulles. Here’s his surprising response:

On Sept. 23, 1994, I was taken to prison with a 67-year sentence after three times refusing a “plea deal” that would have released me after one year. It’s a tough story that has been extensively covered, including a series in The Wall Street Journal.

For the last 23 years, I have lived in a harsh world of concrete and steel, an asphalt jungle surrounded by high walls and razor wire. It’s a world where prison gangs vie for influence, for control of young minds and the suppression of hope. It was into this world that a profoundly powerful grace has unfolded. This tough story is now no longer about justice or injustice alone. It’s now about Divine Mercy, a term once foreign to this imprisoned world. It started with a series of what seemed to be mere “accidents.”

Two lives converge

Refusing to plead guilty came with a price steeper than just the length of my sentence. For my first seven years in prison, I was confined with seven other men in a cell built for four.

Unbeknownst to me, a person who was to become pivotal to this story of Divine Mercy spent that same seven years in a prison in a neighboring state confined in a polar opposite circumstance: the utter cruelty of solitary confinement. Pornchai Moontri was brought to the United States from Thailand at age 11. His story is told wonderfully, painfully, powerfully by Felix Carroll in his celebrated Marian Press book, Loved, Lost, Found.

After a series of moves and seemingly unrelated events, Pornchai’s life and mine converged. He was moved to this prison eight years ago. He and I became cellmates, sharing a two-person cell. Two years after his arrival, in 2010, Pornchai announced his decision to become Catholic. He chose my birthday to be baptized and confirmed, but due to other seemingly unrelated “accidental” events, it was postponed until two days later. On Sunday, April 11, 2010, Pornchai was received into the Church. It also just so happened to be Divine Mercy Sunday, the day in which the Lord promised “all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 699).

Mary comes knocking

A few years earlier, I had introduced Pornchai to St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose image in both his priestly and prisoner garb is fixed above the mirror in our cell. Pornchai was so inspired by his life and sacrifice that he took the name “Maximilian” as his Christian name. Pornchai-Max was called from darkness into a wonderful light, and his response to that call has led other prisoners here to examine the direction of their own lives.

Three years later, in 2013, the transformation — not only of Max, but of our prison — took another major step. The Marian Fathers sponsored a group of volunteers to introduce into prison the consecration to Jesus through Mary using the 33 Days to Morning Glory group retreat written by Fr. Michael Gaitley, MIC. It was the first such effort in any prison, and Max and I were invited.

There was just one problem: We were not going. We did not understand what the retreat was all about, and in the previous months we had been hit with a barrage of trials and disappointments, small things that add up painfully behind prison walls. In the midst of this spiritual warfare, I asked Max if he wanted to attend, and he responded with a sullen, “Not really.” I felt the same way.

However, these Marian-trained volunteers were not giving up so easily. After missing the first session, we learned that it would be repeated for the “stragglers.”

“I think that’s us,” I told Max. We also learned that St. Maximilian Kolbe appears prominently in the 33 Days book and retreat. “So I guess we’re going,” said Max.

Several others who had originally opted out also changed their minds. The retreat culminated in our consecration on the Solemnity of Christ the King, Nov. 24, 2013.

Seeing signs in a cellblock

Our consecration didn’t result in thunder and lightning, and our spiritual warfare continued. That’s the nature of prison life. Only in hindsight could we see the immense transformative grace that was given to us. This consecration to Jesus through Mary changed not only our interior lives, but our environment as well.

In the months to follow, many other inmates signed up for subsequent 33 Days group retreats. Several pris­oners converted to Catholicism as a result. Others, such as our friend Michael Ciresi, have come home to their Catholic faith, which they had abandoned. Of the 60 prisoners in this one cellblock, a full 20 percent have entered into Marian consecration.

The Marian-trained prison volunteers have returned to guide two additional groups of prisoners to consecration through 33 Days to Morning Glory and have also led our original group through two other retreat programs in Fr. Gaitley’s Hearts Afire program.

“Part of the risk of real mission and service is the uncertainty of whether it will make any difference,” said Jim Preisendorfer, one of the volunteer retreat leaders. This risk paid off.

Moreover, in this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pornchai Maximilian Moontri and I were invited by Fr. Gaitley to become Marian Missionaries of Divine Mercy, a group committed to consciously and deliberately trying to win the whole world for God through the two powerful spiritual weapons of Divine Mercy and Marian consecration.

On Divine Mercy Sunday 2016, in the prison chapel, Jim witnessed our commitment to the Missionaries’ life and mission.

Walking across the walled prison yard on the way back to our cell that day, Max and I felt like the disciples who met the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus (see Lk 24:13-53). Having once seen life as not worth living, Max, holding his Marian Missionaries handbook, turned to me and said, “How did this happen?”

In announcing the Jubilee Year of Mercy, which began last Dec. 8, the Holy Father spoke of how the thresholds of prison cells can signify inmates’ passage through a Holy Door, “because the mercy of God is able to transform bars into an experience of freedom.”

We’re thankful for the Holy Father’s beautiful gesture. But it seems Mother Mary beat him to it.