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A person i admire conor duffy 11 essay

The person I admire is Saint Maximilian Kolbe. He was born on 8th January 1894 and died on 14th August 1941. He was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland. He was canonized on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts; political prisoners; families; journalists; prisoners; amateur radio; and the pro-life movement.

Pope John Paul II declared him “ The Patron Saint of Our Difficult Century”. Maximilian Kolbe was born Rajmund Kolbe on 8 January 1894 in Zdunska Wola, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time. Kolbe’s father was an ethnic German and his mother was of Polish origins. In 1907, Kolbe and his elder brother Francis decided to join the Conventual Franciscans.

They illegally crossed the border between Russia and Austria-Hungary and joined the Conventual Franciscan junior seminary in Lwow. In 1910, Kolbe was allowed to enter the novitiate. He professed his first vows in 1911, adopting the name Maximilian, and the final vows in 1914, in Rome, adopting the names Maximilian Maria, to show his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Kolbe would later sing hymns to the Virgin Mary in the concentration camp. In 1918, Kolbe was ordained a priest.

In 1919, he returned to the newly independent Poland, where he was very active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanow near Warsaw; a seminary; a radio station; and several other organizations and publications. During the Second World War, he provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2, 000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanow. On 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On May 28, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. At the end of July 1941, three prisoners escaped, prompting the deputy camp commander to pick 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men cried out, “ My wife! My children! ” Kolbe volunteered to take his place. In the starvation cell, he celebrated Mass each day for as long as he was able and gave Holy Communion to the prisoners as the bread prisoners were given was unleavened therefore could be used as the Eucharist. Kolbe also led the other condemned men in song and prayer.

After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards wanted the bunker emptied and so gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. His remains were cremated on August 15th, the Feast of The Assumption of Mary. To conclude, I admire Maximilian Kolbe because of the sheer fact that he sheltered the Jews who were fleeing persecution, in spite of the fact that he knew if he was caught he would be persecuted himself. I also admire Kolbe due to him volunteering to take the place of a family man who had been sentenced to death.

This shows that out of the goodness and kindness of his heart, he would do anything to help someone in their time of need. Overall, Kolbe was a very giving and thoughtful man, a role model to many people, which lead to him becoming a Saint.

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