St. Maximilian Kolbe Holy Card (PC-33)
Pickup available at 7118 Beech Ridge Trail
Usually ready in 2-4 days
PC-33 — St. Maximilian Kolbe Holy Card
The Martyr of Auschwitz — who chose both crowns
As a boy of twelve, Raymund Kolbe knelt before a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding two crowns — one white, representing purity, and one red, representing martyrdom. When she asked which he would choose, the boy answered without hesitation: "I choose both." It was a promise he kept with his life.
Born in Poland in 1894, St. Maximilian Kolbe became a Conventual Franciscan friar, earned doctorates in both philosophy and theology in Rome, and founded the Militia Immaculatae — the Army of the Immaculate One — a worldwide movement of Marian consecration and evangelical zeal that eventually reached over one million households each month through his magazine, the Knight of the Immaculata. He built Niepokalanów, the "City of the Immaculate," near Warsaw — one of the largest Catholic religious houses in Europe — and when the Nazis overran Poland in 1939, he used it to shelter thousands of refugees, including approximately 1,500 Jews.
In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. There he continued his priestly ministry in secret — hearing confessions, celebrating Mass with smuggled bread, giving his own food to starving fellow prisoners — until the day a man was selected to die in a starvation bunker and cried out for his wife and children. St. Maximilian stepped forward and took his place. He survived two weeks without food or water before the guards, impatient, administered a lethal injection on August 14, 1941 — the eve of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He offered his arm willingly and died without fear.
Pope John Paul II canonized him as a Martyr of Charity on October 10, 1982, calling him the "patron of our difficult century." His feast day is August 14th.
Perfect for: Marian consecration programs, pro-life ministry, August 14th feast day, Catholic men's groups, families, journalists, prisoners' ministry, and anyone seeking a patron for impossible times.