The Catholic Church has commemorated the feast day of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish Franciscan friar who gave his life for a fellow prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Second World War.
The commemoration on August 14 formed part of a significant weekend on the liturgical calendar, falling one day before the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15.
Kolbe died at the age of 47 in a starvation cell after stepping forward to take the place of another inmate. Following the escape of a prisoner from the camp, the Nazi commander decreed that 10 inmates selected by lot would pay with their lives, ordering them to die without food or water in a subterranean cell.
When one of the 10 selected men, a fellow Polish prisoner, begged for mercy while recalling his wife and children who needed him, Kolbe stepped out of the formation. Tensions mounted among the watching prisoners as the Conventual Franciscan friar approached the Nazi command to volunteer to die in the man's place.
After identifying himself as a Catholic priest, Kolbe had his offer accepted by the Nazi officer and was transferred to the death cell alongside the nine other condemned men. Over nearly two weeks in the cell, Kolbe provided a testimony of faith by praying with the other prisoners, an act recognized even by the camp guards.
On August 14, 1941, after most of the condemned men had died and guards required the cell for other uses, Kolbe was executed by lethal injection.
Canonisation by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II canonised Kolbe as a martyr of charity in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican on October 10, 1982. The ceremony took place before an enthusiastic crowd that included the surviving prisoner whose life Kolbe had saved in the concentration camp.
The canonisation followed Kolbe's earlier beatification by Pope Paul VI. During the 1982 ceremony, Pope John Paul II noted that Kolbe had fulfilled the Gospel of John, which records Jesus telling his disciples that no one has greater love than laying down one's life for one's friends, by sacrificing himself for a complete stranger.
Visions of Purity and Martyrdom
According to Catholic tradition surrounding his life, Kolbe's martyrdom fulfilled a childhood vision in which the Virgin Mary appeared to him holding two crowns. She offered him a white crown representing purity and a red crown representing martyrdom, and the young boy chose to accept both.
Throughout his life, Kolbe was a prominent promoter of devotion to the Immaculate Conception. In October 1917, while preparing for his religious vocation in Rome, he established the Militia of the Immaculata to foster Marian devotion.
