Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894 - 1941)PriestMartyrConfessor of the FaithThere are a handful of witnesses for Christ who not only symbolized all that was good and noble about the twentieth century but died because of all that was godless and evil. Maximilian Kolbe is one of the most shining examples and most beloved but there is so much more to know about this priest who offered his life as a sacrifice so that another might live. Maximilian Maria Kolbe was born Rajmund Kolbe of a Polish mother and German father in Zduńska Wola in west central Poland in 1894. At the age of twelve, young Rajmund experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin in which she held out to him two crowns, one of white symbolizing purity and the other of red which symbolized martyrdom. He chose both crowns.In 1907 Rajmund and his brother entered the novitiate of the Conventual Franciscans, one of the three fraternities that comprise the First Order of Franciscans. Upon entering the novitiate, he took the religious name