Maximilian Kolbe

 Today we commemorate the feast of Maximilian Kolbe, the saint of the holocaust who offered his life in exchange for that of his fellow prisoner.  

What drives home for me on this day, as I recall his heroic act of sacrifice, is what I remember telling my students years ago:  Dying for Christ is rather easy; what isn't is living like Christians!  

Speaking during a lesson in Anthropology, in the section on human emotions and habits, I recall making this point very emphatically to the students (not that I prepared for it; it was very very extemporary). The Church did not make Kolbe a saint purely because he, at that crucial point of time, offered himself as a substitute to the fellow prisoner.  It is because the Church and we recognise that he could act so, because he was used to it.  Making a choice for the good of the others, placing the other before oneself, being selfless were virtues ALREADY practised and lived by this man.  The act in that prison, was not an on the spur reaction, without thought and preparation. Of course, none immediately.  But certainly he had made placing the other before oneself, a habit; not a once in a way act.  

Maximilian Kolbe could die for his companion (and God) because he LIVED for God and his people!  He didn't have to make a big sacrifice at that point of time; because he had consistently and consciously made such decisions and choices, for long, until that time! 

Most people think that he died of starvation and thirst in the prison; he didn't. He, along with three others (out of the 10) isolated and starved, as a deterrent for the other prisoners to try to escape the prison, survived even after two weeks.  And since the Nazi guards wanted to end this 'lesson' quick and for need of space, decided to end the episode by injecting the lethal injection of carbolic acid.  And so it was that after being deprived of food and water for two weeks, he was administered the carbolic acid injection!