ST. MAXIMILIAN KOLBE, PATRON SAINT OF THE ADDICTED
St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest and Conventual Franciscan friar, had a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother from the age of ten, when Our lady appeared to him and presented him with two crowns, a white crown of chastity and a red crown of martyrdom. In 1917 he founded the “Militia Immaculata,” a movement dedicated to encouraging people to make a total consecration of themselves to Jesus, through Mary. In 1927 he founded the “City of the Immaculata,” a monastery that became a leading center for publishing pamphlets, books, and a daily newspaper (“The Knight of the Immaculata,” with a circulation of over 1 million). Kolbe eventually caught the attention of the Nazis, and in 1941 the monastery was shut down. Kolbe was arrested and taken to Pawiak prison in Warsaw, Poland, and three months later to Auschwitz. When men were chosen to be starved to death as a deterrent against escapes, Kolbe volunteered to take the place of a man with a family. After two weeks of starvation, Kolbe was the only man still alive. On August 14, 1941, he was given a lethal injection of carbolic acid. He was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on October 10, 1982. The man whose place Kolbe took, Franciszek Gajowniczek, survived Auschwitz and was present as a guest at St. Kolbe’s canonization.