GLADE PARK, CO (Catholic Online) -- Maximilian Kolbe was born in Poland in 1894, became a Franciscan monk as a teenager, and was later ordained as a priest who served a small parish community. But when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, tragic events of human suffering where set into motion in which Kolbe's destiny would be sealed.

The story is well known. In his labors to protect many Jewish refugees, Kolbe found himself a Nazi target, was arrested, and sent off to Auschwitz in 1941. There, in the midst of the death camp's unimaginable daily horrors, he worked to encourage his fellow prisoners by setting an example of faith and hope.

One day a prisoner escaped, and, in order to bring an end to any future plans of the same, the guards decided to punish 10 inmates of cellblock 14 by condemning them to death by starvation in an underground bunker. One of the ten was Franciszek Gajowniczek, who began to weep and cried out, "My poor wife and children! I will never see them again!" At that moment, Fr. Kolbe calmly and purposefully stepped forward.

"I wish to die for that man. I am old; he has a wife and children." Such an unusual offer surprised the deputy commandant, who asked Kolbe to identify himself. His response was simple and direct: "I am a Catholic priest." Those words said far more about the saint than any name possibly could. The commandant agreed to grant the request.

Thrown into the dank, crowded underground bunker with the other men, Maximilian Kolbe continued to set an example of faith and hope, leading them in prayers of praise and adoration to God, singing hymns, and encouraging them to focus on the certain and irrevocable promises of Christ. Looking back on those events, we see that Fr. Kolbe's food, in imitation of the Savior, was to do the Father's will (see Jn 4:34), for weeks later it became necessary to kill him by lethal injection.

Maximilian Kolbe, a martyr for charity, was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 10 October 1982, with the surviving Franciszek Gajowniczek present. As is normally the case, we begin to glimpse the sublime mystery of God's loving providence by looking into history, whether it is our own, another's, or that of humankind collectively, as we cast our eyes and hearts upon the unfolding landscape of salvation in Christ.

The Life of Hope

While there are many things we can learn from the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe, one which stands out above others is the power of hope. Here we do not speak of hope as a natural human virtue, such as we might find in the personal conviction that we will somehow "get through the day" or complete a difficult task, but rather as one of the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity that are infused into the human person by God. St. Maximilian's hope did not originate from within himself, but from outside of himself, as a supernatural gift bestowed by the divine Other, from Father to adopted son. It was the virtue of hope that allowed St. Maximilian to continue to trustingly walk forward, even when faced with death itself, confident in the promises of Christ, enabling him to live as a child of God.

The theological virtues of faith, hope and charity "adapt man's faculties for participation in the divine nature" and "directly relate to God. They dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity," and have as "their origin, motive, and object" the Triune God (CCC 1812). The theological virtues, then, are "infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life," and thus are "the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being" (CCC 1813).

We could not live and function as God's children in absence of the infused theological virtues. For instance, devoid of hope, we would lack the ability to trust in Christ's promises, which would overpower any desire for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life with God as the culmination of human fulfillment. Therefore the joy experienced in looking forward to a life of unending happiness with God would be replaced by the darkness of discouragement -- if such a sad state of existence were not supplemented by created objects as distractions, it would become truly unbearable. However, God provides us with unceasing encouragement through the virtue of hope, even in the midst of the greatest difficulties, providing us with not only a thirst for what he has planned out of his superabundant goodness, but the certitude that he himself will aid us in journeying ever-more-deeply into his life of love.

"Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the ...