14 August 2021
Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
Prisoner 16670. When he arrived at the Auschwitz concentration camp, this number identification was the new name for Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Conventual Franciscan priest. Captivity did not stop Kolbe from continuing to minister to his fellow prisoners. A pivotal moment in his ministry came after a few prisoners escaped from the camp. To dissuade others, the SS officer in charge decided to starve ten prisoners in a bunker underneath one of the campground buildings. The camp officers selected ten men at random, and when they came to Franciszek Gajonwniczek, he exclaimed out in agony for the sake of his wife and children he would be leaving behind. Moved by the man’s plea, Kolbe decided to take his place among the ten.
Kolbe, with his fellow prisoners in isolation, was starved of food and water for two weeks. Their immurement did not keep Kolbe from offering what solace he could, gathering the men together in prayer. After two weeks, Kolbe was the only one remaining of the ten, so the camp officials injected Kolbe with poison. He died on this day in 1941. The visitors to the camp today may see Kolbe’s death certificate and the bunker where he and his fellow prisoners died. Franciszek Gajonwniczek, the man for whom Kolbe exchanged his life, lived until 1995, and he was able to attend Kolbe’s canonization mass in Rome with St. John Paul II.
Kolbe faced a choice that Joshua proclaims to the people of Israel: to serve YHWH or idols that reflect the worse of humanity. The idols of power and domination guided the Nazi party to its atrocities. Kolbe opted to give his life away since he knew his life was first a gift from God. He became like the child in our Gospel reading, utterly dependent upon the grace and glory of Christ to sustain him in one of the darkest places of the world. With the Israelites in ancient times and as the whole Church today, let us proclaim similar to Kolbe in the witness of his life, “We will serve the Lord, our God, and obey his voice.”