Who was Maximilian Kolbe?

St. Maximilian Kolbe

St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894–1941) was born in Poland to a devout Christian family. As a boy he had a vision of the Virgin Mary. She showed him two crowns, one white for virginity and one red for martyrdom, and asked him which he would be willing to accept. He replied that he would accept both. This began his lifelong mission of promoting devotion to the Virgin Mary and the Miraculous Medal. He eventually joined the Franciscans.

While studying for the priesthood in Rome, he gathered a group of fellow friars and founded the Militia of the Immaculata which became a crusade of Marian consecration. From it came the Knights of the Immaculate magazine, which reached a circulation of 750,000, and a radio show, both of which became a source of strengthened faith all over Poland. He established a monastery in Poland which grew to 800, the largest in the world at that time.

In 1930 he traveled to the Far East and founded a monastery in Nagasaki, Japan.

He returned to Poland in 1936. During World War II, St. Maximilian Kolbe housed over 3,000 Polish refugees at his monastery. 

He was eventually imprisoned because of his fight for truth through his magazine, and was sent to Auschwitz in 1941. He endured special cruelty because he was a Catholic priest. St. Maximilian ministered to the people in the camp and offered his life in place of a man to be killed by firing squad. After being starved for two weeks and still found alive, he was killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941.

St. Maximilian Kolbe is the patron of families, drug addicts, prisoners, journalists, and the pro-life movement. 

His feast day is August 14th.