Maximilian Kolbe died 79 years ago today in the year 1941. He died by way of lethal injection in a cell in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp at the hands of the Nazis.
Kolbe chose to die when he offered to replace fellow prisoner Franciszek Gajowniczek who had attempted escape. He was condemned to death by starvation and six others died ahead of him until the lethal injection was administered.
Kolbe was a Roman Catholic Priest a Christian who died alongside Six million Jews. Jesus Christ some 2000 years earlier was a Jew who also chose to die so that enumerable millions would live a life eternal and as followers of Christ become Christians.
To give ones life for another is the ultimate sacrifice but to do so with prolonged pain and suffering can only be explained by a love so immense. We see at the same time the incredible cruelty of man the depths mans hatred will fathom and to do so with by hate so immense. These two extremes combined together in death, ending yet beginning suffering yet release , new from old, victory beyond no other.
The statue of Roman Catholic Kolbe stands with nine other Martyrs in the west entrance door of Westminster Abbey in London. Hewn from Limestone the statue placed as a memorable reminder that with one God denominations cannot exist and that only the fault of man again draws lines of division boundaries of banal and the hypocrisy of mankind.
This story is evidence of the failure of man and the hope there is in Christ and in Christ alone. When death is by choice to life one only then sees the ultimate power of free will and that final act which the cruelty of mankind has no power over. It is the ultimate point where freedom reigns.
qbitblogger 