#16670: St Maximillian Maria Kolbe, OFM

Today is the feast day of St Maximilian Maria Kolbe OFM! Ora pro nobis! 

He died 14th August 1941, in Auschwitz (Oświęcim) I. He offered his life in place of a man, Franciszek Gajowniczek who had a wife and two sons. Franciszek Gajowniczek was present at his beatification and canonisation in the Vatican. Imagine how he must have felt! St Kolbe was placed in a cell to starve to death in the blackest of conditions, even if he did not die by the gas chamber. When he did not die after two weeks of dehydration and starvation, he was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid straight into his heart as the soldiers wanted to clear the cell to make way for new prisoners. 

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us those who have recourse to thee. And those who do not have recourse to thee, especially the freemasons and those who are commended to thy care. Amen.

"There is no kind of heroism a soul cannot achieve with the help of the Immaculata." --Saint Maximilian Kolbe, founder of Niepokalanów (1927) in Teresin (42 km to the west from Warsaw), Poland