Fr Vincent Stapleton pens a letter to St Maximillian Kolbe

Above: Fr Vincent Stapleton

Most illustrious St Maximillian Kolbe

Recently, we marked the 81st anniversary of your death in the Concentration Camp of Auschwitz on August 14, 1941.

You would have taken it to be a great honour to die on the eve of the celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, body and soul, into heaven.

All your life, you had a profound dedication to Mary, the mother of God. You fondly called her the Immaculata and placed everything into her hands. She was at the heart of the tireless and fruitful ministry that you carried out, first in Poland and then in Japan before returning to Poland to meet your destiny.

I would like to take you back to that fateful day in Auschwitz at the end of July 1941, when a prisoner escaped from the camp. As a punishment/deterrent the inmates were assembled in the main square and ten prisoners were selected at random for slow death by starvation in an underground bunker.

Hundreds of prisoners were present. As ten victims were led away, one of the men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, broke down in helpless tears screaming – “my wife! My children!”

What always struck me so powerfully about this moment, St Maximillian, is your choice. Hundreds of men studied the ground and drew no unwanted attention to themselves. Who can blame them?

They were well and truly cowed by the ferocious cruelty of the regime. But you stepped forward out of the crowd and addressed the deputy camp director – “I would like to take that man’s place.” He asked – “Who are you?” You did not answer – “Prisoner 16670,” as you should have. You said – I am a Catholic Priest!

You never let them take your humanity. At this decisive moment you were able to make an offering of your life in perfect freedom and love by saying – “I would like to take that man’s place.”

Each day, a Catholic Priest stands at the altar to remind himself and his people of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ – how Jesus too said … I would like to take each one’s place on the cross. You lived this mystery intensely, Maximillian.

It became clear to you as you stood in the yard at Auschwitz that this was the moment in which you would fulfil your priesthood. You transformed that horrible underground bunker from a place of screams to a little oratory of the Rosary.
You and your nine companions died with a sense of faith, peace and dignity and you were the last of the ten to die.

Still today, in the heart of that awful place – which is a stain on the history of humanity – a candle burns in that cell, where millions of people visit each year, to remind us that we have the freedom to choose differently.

Franciszek Gajowniczek attended your canonization. You are both together now in the Kingdom of Heaven. Some might scoff and say, he saved one out of hundreds and so many died and so many suffered and what difference could one little act make to all the others.

The truth is that we all have to die – and that our life on earth is really only a brief training session for the main event.
We can all choose to put our head down and preserve ourselves when the going gets tough. Or we can choose like you, Maximillian, to enter the fray, to show up and make our short life a true example of the way to live well.

Your actions have echoed down through the decades inspiring many people. I want to thank you personally for your example, your faith and your prayers which mean a lot to me.
Fr Vincent Stapleton is curate in Thurles parish