Father Kolbe

The man known as St. Maximilian Kolbe was born Raymond Kolbe on January 8, 1894 in Poland. As a boy he was somewhat mischievous, but also devout and he was especially devoted the Blessed Mother. He entered the Conventual Franciscans in 1910. The young seminarian studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He founded a sodality called the Militia of Mary Immaculate. In 1918, he was ordained and took the name Maximilian. Father Kolbe devoted his life to spreading devotion to Mary Immaculate and he used the publishing media and radio to promote this devotion. This publishing agency was based in a friary called the City of Mary Immaculate which Father Kolbe founded in the 1920s; the friary became home to 762 Franciscans. Father Kolbe founded other friaries in Nagasaki an India. In 1939, the Germans invaded Poland and Kolbe sent most of the friars at the City of Mary Immaculate to their relatives because he knew the friary would be seized. The Gestapo arrested him and some of the remaining friars, keeping them imprisoned for some months. Father Kolbe was released late in 1939 and immediately began organizing a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, 2,000 of whom were Jews. He and his friars shared their meager food and supplies with the refugees. On February 17, 1941 Father Kolbe was arrested for assisting the Jews and the Polish underground; in May he was sent to Auschwitz. At Auschwitz, Father Kolbe, whose health had always been poor, shared his meager rations with other prisoners and often went without food so that others could eat. He counseled the other prisoners and heard their confessions. He was often beaten by the guards for praying. After he had been in the concentration camp for some months, a prisoner escaped. The Nazi had the practice of executing ten prisoners when one escaped. Franciszek Gajowniczek, a man with a wife and children, was one of those randomly chosen for death. As he begged the guards for mercy because of his family, Father Kolbe stepped forward and offered to take his place. The Nazi commander accepted. Maximilian Kolbe and nine other men were locked inside a bunker without food or water. At the end of two weeks, the priest was one the few prisoners still alive. He and the remaining prisoners were injected with a lethal drug on August 14, 1941. Their bodies were then cremated. Franciszek Gajowniczek was able to return home to his wife at the end of the war; their two children had died. The man who Father Kolbe had saved lived to be ninety-five and he never tired of telling people what the saint had done for him. Maximilian Kolbe was canonized in 1982. He is a patron of families, the pro-life movement, journalists, and those addicted to chemical substances.