Today is the feast of Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan during World War II. Devoted to Our Lady, he founded the Militia of the Immaculata movement, which still exists today. He published the Knight of the Immaculate magazine in both Poland and Japan. In 1939 he founded a radio station. Arrested in 1939 by the Nazis, he was put in Auschwitz. In July of 1941, he asked to take the place of a married Jewish man with children, Francis Gajowniczek, who was chosen to die by starvation.
When he didn't die fast enough, he was killed by lethal injection on August 14th, 1941, the day before the Feast of the Annunciation.
Gajowniczek, the man whose life Kolbe saved in Auschwitz, died on March 13, 1995 in Poland. After the war, he spent the rest of his life honoring Kolbe.
St. Maximillian Kolbe is the patron saint of the pro life movement, prisoners and of drug addicts.
2 comments:
i really like maximillian kolbe. i think he is one of the saints that is often overlooked. alot of people do not know about the ultinate sacrifice that he made to save a mans life.
Yep. He is one of the shining lights in the midst of a terribly tragic time.
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