A Hero for Our Age
For me, today is an occasion to consider matters of permanent importance, since it is the feast of a hero of mine, St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who volunteered to take the place of a man condemned to death at Auschwitz. Kolbe’s story is a powerful one, which is why John Paul II proclaimed him “the patron saint of our difficult century” and why Christopher Hitchens dismissed him in his atheist manifesto as a “rather ambivalent priest...who had apparently behaved nobly in Auschwitz,” without even bringing himself to mention Kolbe’s name. I would invite anyone wondering whether John Paul II or Hitchens is right to read this account of Kolbe’s life, which makes clear that what made Kolbe’s heroic death possible was all that had come before, including numerous prior acts of selflessness in Nazi captivity.
In the final issue of his newspaper, before it was supressed by the Nazis, Kolbe wrote this: “No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”
Comments
Tom---
Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing St Maximilian’s eternally relevant words to us.
They sums up why I’m addicted to TakiMag...a catholic gathering of souls committed by their individual calls to serving the Truth; each finally realising that their true struggle lies within, rather than without.
So thank you Tom; and thank you Taki.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Thank you for reminding us of a truly magnificent hero and the Lord he serves.
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Thank you Tom.
Only a person filled with the Lord’s love could do what St. Maximilian Kolbe did.
Could we? Do we love enough?
Click to flag this comment as abusive
Post a Comment
By submitting this form, you give Taki's Magazine permission to publish this comment. Comments will be published at our discretion, and may be edited for clarity and length. Personal attacks, ethnic slurs, the riding of hobby horses and the beating of dead ones will be deleted as soon as they are detected by our small but alert staff. Repeat abusers of this policy will be barred from leaving comments. All comments reflect only the views of those posting them and not necessarily those of this website, its editors, or authors. For best formatting, please limit your response to one paragraph and don't hit "enter" to force line breaks.
Commenting is not available in this section entry.