Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

1
PRIESTHOOD SUNDAY

• Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe

2

• Maximilian Kolbe (8 January 189414 August 1941),
  was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who
  volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the
  Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland.

3

• He was canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint
  Maximilian Kolbe on 10 October 1982 by Pope John
  Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is
  the patron saint of drug addicts, political
  prisoners, families, journalists, prisoners,
  amateur radio and the pro-life movement. Pope
  John Paul II declared him "The Patron Saint of
  Our Difficult Century".

4

• On 17 February 1941 he was arrested by the German
  Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, and
  on May 28 he was transferred to Auschwitz as
  prisoner 16670.
• In July 1941 a man from Kolbe's barracks
  vanished, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl
  Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10
  men from the same barracks to be starved to death
  in Block 13 (notorious for torture), in order to
  deter further escape attempts.(The man who had
  disappeared was later found drowned in the camp
  latrine.) One of the selected men, Franciszek
  Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and
  Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

Auschwitz-Birkenau
5
Martyrs at Westminster Abbey

• During the time in the cell he led the men in
  songs and prayer. After three weeks of
  dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe and three
  others were still alive. He encouraged others
  that they would soon be with Mary in heaven. Each
  time the guards checked on him he was standing or
  kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking
  calmly at those who entered, while the others lay
  moaning and complaining, on the ground around
  him. He was murdered with an injection of
  carbolic acid. Some who were present at the
  injection say that he raised his left arm and
  calmly waited for the injection.

Saint Maximilian Mary Kolbe