Respect for Human Dignity: Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Pope Francis once wrote about the saints that, “Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel” (Gaudete et exsultate 19). Better than any theology textbook or well-crafted bulletin column, the lives of the saints put flesh on the truths that we believe. Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s (feast day August 14th) respect for human dignity illustrates that key teaching more fully. As you remember, everything in the Church’s social doctrine hinges on last week’s concept of human dignity, that because we are made in God’s image we deserve respect and require certain things to reach our true potential.
St. Maximilian grew up in Poland in the early 20th century and became a Conventual Franciscan priest who dedicated himself as a priest to evangelization, the sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ. He understood clearly that all people need to hear this news presented to them in a way suited for their time and place. In particular, he tried to speak to them through the modern media of his day, becoming a pioneer in print, radio, and even rudimentary film to convey this message. He established missions in his native Poland and then traveled across the world to Japan to build a publishing center in the Japanese language there because he knew the people needed to meet Christ. Fr. Maximilian knew that human persons were both body and soul and needed to be fed on all levels to flourish. His publishing center fed the mind and soul of his readers, while the charity offered through the Polish center (called the ‘City of the Immaculate’) fed their bodies.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1941, Fr. Kolbe shielded Polish and Jewish refugees within the walls of his center. He was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where he continued to minister in secret to the other prisoners. In the midst of the death camp where dehumanization was expected, he once again fed the bodies and souls of those who needed him. He heard confessions in secret and regularly gave away his own food even while in poor health. Following a prisoner escape, the camp supervisor selected 10 men to be starved to death. When one of them, a husband and father, pleaded for mercy, Fr. Kolbe stepped out of line and offered to take the man’s place. He and the other nine were taken to a starvation cell where he reportedly led the others in prayers and hymns praising God while they died one by one. After two weeks, only Fr. Kolbe was alive and the Nazis killed him by lethal injection on August 14th. The husband and father whose life was saved testified to Fr. Kolbe’s holiness and came to the canonization ceremony in 1988. St. Maximilian Kolbe embodied what it meant to see the dignity of others and promote it even in the harshest and most demeaning conditions. His act of self-sacrifice was a radical affirmation of the value of that man’s life and restored hope to the Auschwitz prisoners. May his life inspire us as well today!