St. Maximilian Kolbe
WELCOME ASIA AFRICA NORTH AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA EUROPE OCEANIA John Paul II

 

Home
Up

 

St. Maximillian Kolbe

st-max-kolbe.jpg (25387 bytes)


Voluntarily chose the gas chamber in a German concentration camp during WWII in order to save a family man of five children, by taking his place.

 

Prayer To St. Maximilian Kolbe

0 Lord Jesus Christ who said, "greater love than this no man has that a man lay down his life for his friends", through the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose life illustrated such love, we beseech You to grant us our petitions (here mention the requests you have).

Through the Knights of the Immaculata movement, which Maximilian founded, he spread a fervent devotion to Our Lady throughout the world. He gave up his life for a total stranger and loved his persecutors, giving us an example of unselfish love for all men - a love which was inspired by true devotion to Mary.

Grant 0 Lord Jesus, that we too may give ourselves entirely without reserve to the love and service of our Heavenly Queen in order to better love and serve our fellowman in imitation of your humble servant, Max milian. Amen.

Three Hail Marys and a Glory Be To The Father.

 

 

Maximilian Kolbe

Maximilian Kolbe Born: 1894

Died: 1941

Canonized: 1982

Feast Day: August 14

Patron Saint of: political prisoners

Maximilian Kolbe was born of a poor family in 1894 in Zdunska Wola which is near Lodz, Poland. His parents' solid religious foundation led Maximilian to join the Franciscans at the age of 6 and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1919 at the age of 25. A struggle with tuberculosis forced him to return home where he instructed others in the faith. While in Poland, he published a Christian periodical which eventually became head quartered out of a newly established friary in Niepokalanow, Poland. In 1936, Maximilian relocated to Niepokalanow to take up the post of friar superior. When word came that Nazi Germany was moving toward Poland, Maxililian ordered the friars to flee, yet he remained to use the friary as a refuge for some 4500 Poles and Jews. He was captured by the Nazis in 1941 and was sent to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. Shortly after his arrival, he negotiated the starvation sentence of a prisoner by offering his life instead. Without food or water, Maximilian survived for 14 days; impatient, his captors ended his life by lethal injection.  

 

 
1