Saint Maximilian Kolbe
Today, August 14, the Eve of the Immaculate Conception, is the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe. He is the Polish Franciscan priest who is best known for offering his life in Auschwitz, in place of a family man who was condemned to death in the starvation bunker. At the age of 21, Kolbe earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Gregorianum in Rome and a doctorate in theology there by age 28. He organized the Militia Immaculata in Rome to work for the conversion of sinners and the