The Bravery of St. Maximilian Kolbe

St. Maximilian Kolbe

August 14th is the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe who was a Polish Conventual Franciscan Friar. Reading his biography, one notices the man’s bravery, which emanated from his complete faith in God. Maximilian exhibited this bravery throughout his entire life.

Close to the end of his life while imprisoned at the Auschwitz Death Camp, Maximilian volunteered to replace a father who had been chosen by the Nazis to die of starvation. He lived three weeks without food until one of his captors injected him with carbolic acid.

Lvov

In 1907, as a young man filled with the excitement of vocation to be a Conventual Franciscan Friar, Maximilian whose baptismal name was Rajmund and his brother Francis snuck across the border from the Russian Empire into Austro-Hungary. They were headed to the Conventuals’ junior seminary in Lvov (today in the Ukraine).

Later on as the Second World War raged, Friar Maximilian offered shelter to 2,000 Jewish refugees in his Niepokalanow friary. He risked certain death for doing this. During this time he also ran an underground radio station, which he used to advocate freedom and peace. The station brought comfort to its listeners and helped to maintain a sense of community in war ravaged Poland.

St. Maximilian of Kolbe came from Poland

Everything that St. Maximilian did in life – whether it was founding the Militia Immaculata or travelling on missions to Japan – he did out of service to the Lord. He always remembered that no matter how difficult his circumstances became, God would be at his side.