Maximilian Kolbe is one of my all time favourite saints! I heard about him sporadically growing up, and I learned more about him when I did the 30 Days to Morning Glory Retreat (I 100% recommend this personal retreat).
If you don’t know anything about St. Maximilian, I highly recommend reading about him on our Saint of the Month board in the parish foyer, by looking him up online, or reading one of the many books about him. Here’s a quick summary of his life, before I tell you why I love him so much!
Maximilian lived during WWII, and even though the Nazis were forbidding priests to do their jobs, Maximilian remained true to his faith and continued doing God’s work. He was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. While there, a prisoner escaped and, to send a message to the other prisoners, the Nazi guards chose 10 people to be locked in a bunker to be starved to death. One of the 10 said that he had a wife and children, and he begged the guards to not choose him. Maximilian offered to take the man’s place. In the bunker, he also kept the spirits up of the other 9 prisoners, bring joy to their confinement.
How many times do I find myself in situations where someone is carrying a burden that I can take from them? How many times do I turn away from the struggles of others because I’m “too busy,” “too tired,” “I don’t know what I could do to help,” or “it’s too hard, and it will cost me too much.” Sometimes I care more about my own comfort than I do about helping those around me and doing what is right.
St. Maximilian was tired from the forced labour of Auschwitz; he knew the price he would have to pay, and he choice to help the man anyway. He freely gave his life to save someone else. Who else can say that they’ve done that, even in the little moments of their day? How many of us have given of ourselves freely, sacrificed our time, energy, money, to do what was right?
The man who’s life was spared by St. Maximilian Kolbe was able to attend his canonization with his family! Can you imagine? Seeing the man who saved your life become a saint? I can’t imagine the happiness and joy that that man must have felt.
I love St. Maximilian because he wasn’t trying to be superior to everyone else, he wasn’t trying to show off that he was doing what no one else dared to do, he wasn’t doing it to tell the world that he was the brave one! He was doing it because he knew that this is what Jesus would have done – what Jesus DID do for all of us. Jesus gave His life on the cross for each of us, and Maximilian’s love for Jesus and Mary was so great that he wanted to do the same for someone else. That is what we are called to do! We are called to be like Jesus in every moment of our day. We are called to give of ourselves, to die to ourselves for the sake of others, always.
I pray that we can be more like St. Maximilian in our lives, that we can give freely of ourselves, and that we can do so with a joyful heart. St. Maximilian, pray for us. Amen.
~ Noëlle, Youth Ministry Coordinator
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