For there is not greater love...

Today is the Feast of Maximilian Kolbe, martyr.

The great book of martyrs is not finished. It started with Saint Stephan, the proto-martyr and continues through the Romans, the Barbarians, the Wars of Religion, the Wars with Islam, the foundation of the Church in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. It continues even recently to be added to, especially in the previous century.

It was this century, that saw the rise and fall of totalitarian regimes, two world wars, a number of genocides, and a great many dictators that saw the making of many martyrs. In fact there were more martyrs between the open guns of the First World War to the fall of Communism in 1989 than any other period in the Church.

These witnesses of the faith teach us today by their example. This is what a martyr is, one who witnesses. They witness that Christian love is much more powerful than secular hate. They witness that the dignity of every human being is so great that no regime can arbitrarily snuff out anybody, no matter how weak, how “useless,” they have value since they are a child of God. He has knit each person together in his mother’s womb. And like Maximilian Kolbe, they bear witness that even in the darkest moments of the human experience that God is present, that God gives strength, and that God cares.

Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish-Conventual Franciscan priest. He was arrested on February 17, 1941 for his activity in the Polish resistance of the Third Reich. His activities included give over 2000 Jews refugee in his friary and providing the radio support for the resistance movement. He was sent to Auschwitz as a slave labourer. In July of that year a man went missing from the barracks where Maximilian Kolbe lived. Keeping with the principle of “corporate punishment,” the whole barracks had to be punished for this escape.

A sketch of Maximilian Kolbe handing over his life, "my life is not taken from me, but I hand it over." This sketch is from a series of sketchs done by a survivor of Auschwitz.

Ten men were selected at random to be starved to death in the basement cells of the work camp prison. Recalling the words of Jesus, that there is no greater love then to lay down your life for a friend, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take the place of one of the men, because that man had a wife and family outside the camp.

With his companions, Maximilian was locked in a cell with limited air, no water, no light, no food, and no sanitation. The SS commander’s dogs had much better accommodations than these cells. Usually with priests the goal of the SS was not to kill them, but break them, to cause them to loss the faith through intense suffering. Most men died in these starvation cells within three days. Maximilian did not lose faith, he gained even more faith.

In remembering the law of the gift, this was passed on to his companions, for it is remembered that hymns of joy could be heard radiating from that starvation cell. He not only survived three days, but three weeks. All the while offering encouragement and most likely last Confession to prisoners as new ones rotated in to replace those who had died.

The patience of the SS guards grew thin. Even though this priest was so close to being called home as a result of his maltreatment, they removed his body that by this point must have been no more than a sack of bones. They took a needle, inserted in his arm and injected highly concentrated carbolic acid into his veins. Maximilian Kolbe died on August 14, 1941. He survived over twenty days in the starvation cell. He survived 179 days in Auschwitz.

The starvation cell of Maximilian Kolbe. In the heart of the darkest place from the century of blood, this has become a place of prayer, and even hope for those who suffer injustice.

He won his crown of glory. On October 10, 1982 he was declared a Saint by his countryman, Pope John Paul II.

The man who Maximilian Kolbe traded places with, was at the canonization with his children and grandchildren.

Maximilian Kolbe, Pray for us.