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Friends of the Rosary,
Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, “a martyr of love,” as St. Pope Paul VI described him, who
offered his life in exchange for the life of a husband and father of two sons, on August 14, at the German Nazi concentration and death camp of Auschwitz in Poland. The Polish 47-year-old Franciscan Conventual priest was killed by the Nazis with a lethal injection on August 14, 80 years ago.
St. Kolbe, the founder of the worldwide evangelization movement, Militia Immaculatae, and a missionary in Japan in the 1930s, faithfully followed the path of Christ’s sacrifice and His words in John’s Gospel: “No one has a greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” –– that we read today.
The priest was arrested in February 1941 on charges of aiding Jews and the Polish underground and was imprisoned in Warsaw. He was deported to the death camp of Auschwitz, Poland, where he was stripped of his Franciscan habit and assigned prisoner number 16670. He was forced to the most humiliating jobs, such as carrying dead bodies to the crematorium. Nevertheless, he continued his charity and priestly ministry, for which he was subjected to violent beatings by the guards.
At the end of July 1941, when a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz, in retaliation, the deputy camp commander picked up 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!”, Kolbe volunteered to die in his place, arguing he was a Catholic priest and older than Gajowniczek, 41. The deputy commander accepted the offer.
The Polish priest and others were thus locked up in the “starvation bunker” without food and water. There, Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer. Prison guards found him standing or kneeling in the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After they had been starved and deprived of water for two weeks, only Kolbe remained alive.
The prison authorities administered him a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. Before dying, he pronounced the two words, “Ave Maria”, the final pledge of a life entrusted to the Immaculate Conception. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.
During his visit to Poland in 2016, Pope Francis on July 29 visited the “starvation bunker” where Kolbe breathed his last in Auschwitz. After a moment of silence and reflection, he left, signing the visitors’ book with a brief prayer: “Lord, have mercy on your people, Lord, forgive us for so much cruelty”.
Ave Maria!
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
To Jesus through Mary!
Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.
Please give us the grace to respond with joy!
+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New York
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