Love in Action · Week 2 · Grades 9–12
Guided Notes: St. Maximilian Kolbe
- Name
- Date
- Class
Follow along as your teacher presents. Fill in each section when its slide is on the screen.
A media apostle between two wars
Raymond Kolbe was born in blank 1 to poor weavers in Zduńska Wola, Poland. As a boy he had a dream or vision in which Mary offered him two crowns, white for purity and red for martyrdom, and he asked for both.
He joined the Conventual Franciscans at 16, taking the name Maximilian. In Rome he earned two doctorates and, in blank 2, founded the Militia of the Immaculata to spread love for Mary. He was ordained in 1918.
Despite tuberculosis, he launched the magazine blank 3 of the Immaculata in 1922 and founded the friary Niepokalanów in 1927. It grew to over 700 friars, the largest friary in the world, with a printing press and a radio station.
From Niepokalanów to canonization
Write what happened at each point.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1930 | Write your answer |
| 1936 | Write your answer |
| 1939 | Write your answer |
| Feb. 1941 | Write your answer |
| May 1941 | Write your answer |
| Aug. 1941 | Write your answer |
| 1971 | Write your answer |
| 1982 | Write your answer |
Auschwitz, July 1941
Auschwitz was the largest blank 4 concentration camp, and more than one million people were killed there. Kolbe was beaten by guards because he was a priest. He kept sharing his food and secretly hearing confessions.
In July 1941 a prisoner escaped. In reprisal, the guards selected ten men to starve to death in an blank 5 cell. One, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out for his wife and children.
Kolbe stepped out of line and said, “I am a Catholic priest. I want to take his place.” The guard agreed. In the cell he led the condemned men in prayers and songs. After two weeks he was the last alive, and a guard killed him by injection on blank 6 14, 1941. He was calm and prayed to the end.
Apply it
Kolbe identified himself to the guard with the words “I am a Catholic priest.” What does that self-description most plausibly tell us about his act? Circle one.
- A He hoped his rank would win him better treatment
- B He saw the offer as flowing from his vocation
- C He wanted the guards to record his protest
- D He believed priests were required to volunteer
Why is that the right answer?
Why “Martyr of Charity”?
A martyr is a person killed because of their faith. Kolbe was not asked to deny blank 7. He was killed because he freely took the place of a stranger.
At his canonization in 1982, Pope John Paul II declared him a martyr. He called him a “Martyr of Charity”. The Church saw in his act the words of blank 8 about the greatest love: laying down one’s life for one’s friends.
The Church also pointed to the life that came before. He spread the faith through magazines and radio, loved blank 9, and trusted God completely, even while sick.
Apply it
Kolbe said, “The most deadly poison of our times is indifference.” Which situation today best fits what he was warning against? Circle one.
- A Arguing hard with a post you think is false
- B Deleting an app to protect your attention
- C Declining to share news you cannot verify
- D Watching a classmate get mocked and scrolling on
Why is that the right answer?
Take a side
Kolbe called indifference “the most deadly poison of our times.” Resolved: scrolling past someone’s suffering online is a real moral failure, not a neutral act.
My side: ☐ Agree ☐ Disagree
- Kolbe’s friary sheltered about 2,000 Jewish people when looking away was safer.
- A feed can show more suffering in an hour than one person could ever answer. Does that limit responsibility?
- Is there a moral difference between a stranger’s post and a classmate’s?
- Kolbe said, “Hatred is not a creative force. Only love is creative.” What counts as a creative response online?
My strongest reason, with evidence from the slides:
The best argument for the other side, and my response:
Think, pair, share
Kolbe said, “No one in the world can change Truth.” He used every medium he had to spread it. In a world of edited images, algorithms and AI-generated content, what would it take for you to be a trustworthy voice?
Think: my idea before we talk
Sentence starters: “People can trust what I post when ...”“The hardest part of telling the truth online is ...”“One tool I could use the way Kolbe used his press is ...”
Pair: something my partner said
Let us pray
“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15:13
Lord Jesus, you laid down your life for us.
Burn away our indifference and teach us the love that creates.
Make us faithful stewards of every tool and platform we use.
St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.
Amen.
My own prayer or intention:
Well done
Kolbe spent his life building things for others, and in the end he gave his life itself.
One thing I learned today:
One question I still have:
How could the example of St. Maximilian Kolbe shape the way I live, online and offline?
Challenge: This week, refuse indifference once online: answer one person’s need you would normally scroll past, and use one tool you own to share something true.