Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

When Kolbe was young, he had a vision. He told his parents, "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.” How's that for an answer? As a parent, I have no earthly idea what I would say to that.

He entered a Franciscan seminary in Poland and became a novice at 16. He was interested in science and drew plans for rocket ships. He later received doctorates in philosophy and theology as well, receiving a very well-rounded education.

He was ordained at the age of 24, and took a stand against religious indifference, which he saw as a deadly poison. He founded the Militia of the Immaculata, who "fought" evil with bearing witness of good deeds, prayer, work, and suffering; he then founded Knight of the Immaculata, a religious magazine intended to spread the word about Christianity far and wide. He next established a City of the Immaculata, called Niepokalanow, which housed 700 Franciscans who were involved with the newspaper. He later founded a similar "City" in Nagasaki. Niepokalanow was bombed in 1939 when Poland was overrun by the Nazis. Kolbe and his friars were arrested. In under three months, they were released. Just two years later, he was arrested again when the Nazis came after the leaders. He was sent to Auschwitz.

The story goes that a prisoner had escaped from Auschwitz, and as punishment, ten other men would be killed. The commandant who gave this order, walked in front of the lined-up prisoners, choosing which ones would pay the price for a crime they didn't commit. As the ten chosen men were about to be marched away, Prisoner Number 16670 stepped out of the line, saying, "I would like to take that man's place. He has a wife and children." The commandant asked who he was. "A priest," was the prisoner's reply; he didn't mention his name. The switch was made, and Kolbe was marched, along with the other nine prisoners, to the "block of death," where they were slowly starved to death. Days later, four of these prisoners, including Kolbe, were left alive, and were put to death with injections of carbolic acid.

The one word that jumps out to me while reading this story is "bravery." To stand up and volunteer to die in someone else's place is something I can't imagine. I would like to think that I would do it if I were in that situation, but that's something that you can't say one way or the other what you would do if you've never been in that situation. This is another theme that we've seen in many of the SOTD posts: selflessness. To care so much about a man you'd never have heard of again that you'd give up your life to save theirs? Wow.