A Homily for the Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr
Friday, August 14, 2026
Prince of Peace Catholic Church – 8:00 Mass
1 John 3:14-18; Psalm 116:10-11, 12-13, 16ac-17; John 15:12-16
Audio Recording
There’s a difference between saying that we love someone and actually loving them. We can say, “I love you,” and sincerely mean it. But love becomes most convincing when it costs us something. It is easy to love when everything is going our way. The real test comes when love asks us to give, to forgive, to sacrifice, or to put someone else’s needs ahead of our own.
That is exactly where the First Letter of John takes us today. “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers.” And then John gives us the standard by which we can measure that love: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” John does not leave love in the realm of feelings or good intentions. He says, “Let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.”
That makes today’s Memorial of Saint Maximilian Kolbe particularly powerful.
In July of 1941, while imprisoned at Auschwitz, Father Kolbe was among a group of prisoners selected to die in a starvation bunker after another prisoner had escaped. When Franciszek Gajowniczek (frahn-CHEE-shek guy-ohv-NYEE-chek) was chosen, he cried out that he had a wife and children. Kolbe stepped forward and offered to take his place. When the commandant asked who he was, Kolbe simply answered, “I am a Catholic priest.” He was sent to the starvation bunker in place of that man and died on August 14, 1941.
What makes Kolbe’s sacrifice so extraordinary is that it was not simply an act of courage in a single dramatic moment. His whole life had been preparing him for that moment. He had spent years trying to bring people closer to Christ through his priesthood and devotion to Mary. When the moment came, he did not suddenly become someone different. He simply lived, in the most radical way imaginable, the love he had already been practicing.
And that brings us to Jesus in today’s Gospel: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Most of us will never be asked to make the kind of sacrifice Saint Maximilian Kolbe made. But that doesn’t mean today’s Gospel asks nothing of us. For us, laying down our lives often happens in much smaller ways.
It happens when we patiently listen to someone who needs our attention. It happens when we forgive rather than keep score. It happens when we visit someone who is lonely, make the phone call we have been putting off, or quietly sacrifice our own comfort for another person. It happens whenever we choose love over resentment, generosity over selfishness, and compassion over indifference.
So what does this mean for us today?
First, look for an opportunity to love in deed rather than merely in words. There is probably someone in our life today who needs more than our good intentions.
Second, remember that Christian love has a cost. If loving someone never requires patience, humility, forgiveness, or sacrifice, we may not yet have reached the kind of love Jesus is talking about.
And finally, remember where this love comes from. We do not manufacture it by our own strength. Jesus loved us first. He chose us, called us his friends, and gave his life for us. As we receive him in the Eucharist, we receive the very love that made Saint Maximilian Kolbe capable of giving himself for another.
Saint Maximilian stood in a place where hatred seemed to have the final word. Yet he showed that hatred is never the strongest force. Love is. His life reminds us that even in the darkest circumstances, we can still choose to love.
So today, as we come to the Eucharist, may Christ teach us to do more than speak about love. May he teach us to live it, “in deed and truth,” until the people around us can recognize in our lives the love of the One who first loved us.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.