Saint Maximilian Kolbe

O God, who filled the Priest and Martyr Saint Maximilian Kolbe with a burning love for the Immaculate Virgin Mary and with zeal for souls and love of neighbor, graciously grant, through his intercession, that striving for your glory by eagerly serving others, we may be conformed, even until death, to your Son.

I think the first canonization of a saint, in this case a martyr, that I first encountered as a child was Kolbe’s. It was a brilliant move of John Paul II. This Conventual Franciscan’s ability to love another to the point of sacrificing his life portrays the theodrama of the Paschal Mystery in great proportions. When I went to the death camp where he met his Lord and Savior I was filled with peace and love. But I was also aware that only a Christian’s love like Kolbe’s could rightly interpret the experience.

“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.”