The story of Fr. Kolbe’s heroic sacrifice is well known – how as prisoner #16670 in Auschwitz, he volunteered to take the place of another man who was condemned to death by starvation. What is not as well known is his life as a Franciscan friar, his interior mystical life & total devotion to the Blessed Mother, & his founding of the Crusade of Mary Immaculate to fight against the evils of his day, especially Freemasonry, against which his pamphlets & newspapers were especially effective.
Seeing the need to spread the Gospel abroad, he departed for the Far East, establishing a base of operation on a mountain side near Nagasaki, Japan. He saw opportunities to make God’s love & redemption known wherever he traveled, trusting that God would provide whatever was needed through the hands of Our Lady.
Growing increasingly ill, he was recalled to Poland shortly before WWII. We may remember Fr. Kolbe’s final act of martyrdom, but we must never forget that his whole life was one of total self-offering to God.
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