A3 laminated (encapsulated) poster.
Printed on gloss coated paper then laminated (encapsulated) for durability.
Dimensions: A3 29.7 cms x 42 cms (11 3/4" x 16 1/2").
Details of the Saint's Feast day is printed at the top of the poster.
Maximilian Mary Kolbe, Priest and Martyr.
Feast day 14th August.
Born 1894 in Poland murdered in Auschwitz Concentration Camp 1941. He
was a religious of the Conventual Franciscans, OFM Conv., he had a
particular devotion to Our Lady.
In 1939 he and the friars in Warsaw fed and sheltered Polish refugees,
most of whom were Jewish, by 1941 the friary was closed and Maximilian and four others were imprisoned in Auschwitz where he suffered beatings. Maximilian's response was to pray for his abusers.
As a punishment for an escaped prisoner ten men were selected by the
camp commandant to die by starvation. Maximilian stepped forward to
take the place of a stranger who had a wife and children. Two weeks
later, on the eve of the Assumption, four prisoners including Maximilian remained alive in the bunker, he was killed by an injection
of carbolic acid as he prayed.
His life of holiness and devotion prepared him to
minister and witness to his fellow prisoners and ultimately make the
sacrifice of his life with an act of love in a place of brutality and
evil.
Pope John Paul II at his canonisation in 1982 declared him patron saint of the suffering 20th Century.
St. Maximilian is also regarded as patron saint of drug addicts.
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