A truly great saint.
As I understand it, he doesn't even get a cross marker at Auschwitz.
St. kolbe bump!
If You want to see the difference between Islam and Christianity see Maximilian Kolbe, a Franciscan friar who gained martyrdom by volunteering to die in the place of another man at the Nazi death camp.If Kolbe had been an Islamic scumbag he would have volunteered to die ONLY to kill more innocent life !!!
My RC church in PA is actually named after him. His story is truly inspiring.
See, now THIS is a TRUE martyr.
Prayers offered up in honor of his sacrifice.
I disagree with a lot of Kolbe's views on Jews and capitalism, but you can't say anything bad about a man who would give his life for a stranger. It is inspirational.
Except for the motive of the switch and its effect on the survivor, this reminds me of the Anthony Hopkins movie The Tenth Man.
Kolbe has faith of steel, and guts that most men cannot even fathom.
Ping!
I thought you were talking about Jim Kolbe. I could not figure out how he was ever a martyr. I know he was never one for the Republican Party.
the only thing greater, I think, than being my parents' son, my sisters' brother, my brothers' brother; the only thing greater than the awesome privilege of being an American, is being a Catholic. And how I thank God for it.
He was a truly great saint. I took him as my confirmation name.
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August 14, 2007
St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe
(1894-1941)
“I don’t know what’s going to become of you!” How many parents have said that? Maximilian Mary Kolbe’s reaction was, “I prayed very hard to Our Lady to tell me what would happen to me. She appeared, holding in her hands two crowns, one white, one red. She asked if I would like to have them—one was for purity, the other for martyrdom. I said, ‘I choose both.’ She smiled and disappeared.” After that he was not the same.
He entered the minor seminary of the Conventual Franciscans in Lvív (then Poland, now Ukraine), near his birthplace, and at 16 became a novice. Though he later achieved doctorates in philosophy and theology, he was deeply interested in science, even drawing plans for rocket ships. Ordained at 24, he saw religious indifference as the deadliest poison of the day. His mission was to combat it. He had already founded the Militia of the Immaculata, whose aim was to fight evil with the witness of the good life, prayer, work and suffering. He dreamed of and then founded Knight of the Immaculata,, a religious magazine under Mary’s protection to preach the Good News to all nations. For the work of publication he established a “City of the Immaculata”—Niepokalanow—which housed 700 of his Franciscan brothers. He later founded one in Nagasaki, Japan. Both the Militia and the magazine ultimately reached the one-million mark in members and subscribers. His love of God was daily filtered through devotion to Mary. In 1939 the Nazi panzers overran Poland with deadly speed. Niepokalanow was severely bombed. Kolbe and his friars were arrested, then released in less than three months, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In 1941 he was arrested again. The Nazis’ purpose was to liquidate the select ones, the leaders. The end came quickly, in Auschwitz three months later, after terrible beatings and humiliations. A prisoner had escaped. The commandant announced that 10 men would die. He relished walking along the ranks. “This one. That one.” As they were being marched away to the starvation bunkers, Number 16670 dared to step from the line. “I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” “Who are you?” “A priest.” No name, no mention of fame. Silence. The commandant, dumbfounded, perhaps with a fleeting thought of history, kicked Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek out of line and ordered Father Kolbe to go with the nine. In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked and the slow starvation began in darkness. But there was no screaming—the prisoners sang. By the eve of the Assumption four were left alive. The jailer came to finish Kolbe off as he sat in a corner praying. He lifted his fleshless arm to receive the bite of the hypodermic needle. It was filled with carbolic acid. They burned his body with all the others. He was beatified in 1971 and canonized in 1982. Quote:
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