Raymond (Maximilian) Kolbe had a vision when he was 10 years old. Biographer Tom Cowan describes it in The Way of the Saints: “Our Lady stood before him holding out two crowns, one white, the other red, and asked him to choose between them. He took both. When he told his mother about this, he explained that white meant that he would remain pure and red meant that he would be a martyr.”

Raymond Kolbe was born on Jan. 7, 1891, and was the second of five sons whose parents were poor, piecemeal weavers living in Russian-controlled Poland. He was a fun-loving and independent child. The Franciscans recognized his intellectual potential and accepted him at age 13 into their boarding school in the Austrian zone of Poland. He was an honor student who excelled in math and physical sciences and loved to play chess.

Raymond joined the Franciscan novitiate in 1910 and received the name of Maximilian. He was sent to Rome where he studied for two doctorates at the Gregorian University. While he was a student, he contracted tuberculosis and suffered with this throughout his life.

Paul Burns writes in Butler’s Lives of the Saints that this was also when Maximilian became interested in how the Church’s message could be spread. He was zealous in his devotion to Our Lady and recruited fellow students for his “Militia of Mary Immaculate.” The Catholic Church in Poland had made Mary a national symbol.

He was ordained in 1919, returned to Poland, and spent the next few years as a professor of theology at the Cracow Franciscan Seminary. Writer Patricia Treece described him in A Man for Others as having a spectacular ability to influence others and draw them to the spiritual life.

In 1927, Father Kolbe, his brother, Alphonse, and four Franciscan brothers began to build a friary about 40 kilometers west of Warsaw. This friary called Niepokalanow, or The City of Mary would become the largest friary in the world, housing some 800 religious.

Maximilian and a group of seminarians had taken vows as Knights of the Queen of Heaven and dedicated themselves to work for the salvation of souls through prayer and apostolic work.

Father Kolbe begged money to start a magazine, and the first issue appeared in January 1922. The friary became a bustling workplace with members working on 11 publications, including a daily newspaper. Before World War II Niepokalanow had a radio station and was preparing for television. In the early 1930s, Father Kolbe went to Japan to found a mission and to train Japanese seminarians. His friars there also published a Japanese language magazine.

When Hitler invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Father Kolbe advised most of the community’s brothers to disperse. He remained at the friary and was arrested on Sept. 19 when the Germans arrived. He was freed shortly after that. Malcom Day writes in A Treasury of Saints that Father Kolbe continued to publish his journal. When he refused German citizenship, he was arrested again in 1941 as an “intellectual” and sent to Auschwitz.

In July a prisoner escaped from this death camp. The Germans selected 10 men to be executed in retaliation. One of the men, Francis Gajowniczek, sobbed that he had a wife and children and begged to be spared. Father Kolbe stepped forward and told the German officers he would take the man’s place.

With nine other prisoners, Father Kolbe was placed in a starvation unit and deprived of food and water. Father Kolbe and three others were still alive after two weeks. The Germans injected these prisoners with lethal injections of carbolic acid. Father Kolbe died on the eve of the Assumption, Aug. 14, 1941.

In 1982, the Polish pope, St. John Paul II, whose former diocese of Cracow included Auschwitz, canonized Maximilian Kolbe. Present at the ceremony was the Polish sergeant whose life Father Kolbe had saved.Mary Lou Gibson writes about the saints for the West Texas Angelus from her home in Austin.