"I am a Catholic priest and I want to take his place" ~ August 14 ~ Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe

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"Hatred is not a creative force. Only love is creative." 

~Saint Maximilian Kolbe,
Feast Day, August 14

It should go without saying that any Catholic who identifies and sympathizes with the German National Socialist Party is profoundly ignorant of history. Here is some of that history: an account of the events leading up to St. Maximilian Kolbe's martyrdom in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz:

Finally, after the evening roll call, Colonel Fritsch, accompanied by Palitsch, the recording officer, and a group of well-armed guards approached the line up of men of Block 14. When Fritsch pointed to a man, Palitsch wrote down the victim’s number and he was dragged roughly out of the ranks. When Fritsch pointed out one of the men, tears trickled down the prisoner’s hollow cheeks as he cried out, "Oh…my wife…my poor children….I will never see them again." Fritsch ignored the pleas of the helpless victim.

Suddenly there was a commotion in the ranks. The unexpected, the unbelievable happened. A small, frail prisoner had broken ranks and stepped forward confronting Fritsch. So stunned were the guards at this infringement of the usual protocol that Fritsch himself reached for his pistol.

"Halt!" he gasped. "What do you want?"

Fr. Maximilian looked serenely into the face of Fritsch as the guards moved in. "Please, Herr Commandant, I would like to take the place of that man. I would like to die in his place."

Fritsch demanded, "Who is this man? What is it all about?"

Fr. Kolbe replied, "I am a Catholic priest and I want to take his place. He has a wife and family."

"Are you crazy?" snapped Fritsch.

"I would like to die in his place," the priest repeated. "I’m old, and sick….I can barely work. I’m of no use to anyone anymore. This man is young and strong, and he has a wife and family….I have no one."

"Accepted."

Read more about Fr. Kolbe at the Militia of the Immaculata website.

It should be recalled that Fr. Kolbe originally founded his Militia of the Immaculata to battle communism and freemasonry in Europe. That he died at the hands of German National Socialists should not surprise us. Far from being at opposite ends of the political spectrum, Nazism and Communism are extreme materialist movements which are strongly anti-Catholic and anti-theistic. All of them should be rejected.

I found the quote used in the above meme as part of a general audience given by Pope Benedict XVI on August 13, 2008. In this audience, now ten long and largely sorrowful years ago for the Church, Benedict said:

"Those who pray never lose hope, even when they find themselves in a difficult and even humanly hopeless plight. Sacred Scripture teaches us this and Church history bears witness to this."

This is good advice for those of us who find the current situation of the Church to be approaching humanly hopeless. Let us pray, hope and not worry too much. Despite the machinations of evil men, Our Lord remains in control.