Apostleship of Prayer - Saints
August 14 - St Maximilian Kolbe
Maximilian Kolbe was born in the year of 1894 in Poland. He became a Franciscan Novice when he was sixteen. He was ordained when he was twenty-four years old. He saw religous indifference as the main scourge of theChurch. He made it his mission to combat it. He founded the Militia of the Immaculata, the basis of which was to live a good life, to pray, to work and to suffer. He also established a magazine for the spreading of his teaching. Though he had doctorates in philosophy and Theology he was very interested in science and had designed a rocket ship. The German troops invaded Poland in 1939 and immediately arrested Kolbe and his Franciscan Brothers. He was later released but in 1941 he was arrested again. He was sent to Auschwitz where he was terrible beaten. The commandant of the camp was determined to execute ten of the prisoners because another prisoner has escaped. He randomly selected the victims and as they were passing by he volunteered to take the place of another prisoner who had a wife and three children. The commandant asked who he was. The reply was a priest. The other prisoner was kicked out of the line and the prisoners were lead away to a cell called the block of death. After stripping the prisoners they were huddled into the cell, where theywere to be starved to death. On the eve of the Feast of the Assumption the four remaining prisoners were executed by having carbolic acid inserted into their veins. His body was burned with the other prisoners.
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