FULL QUIVER PUBLISHING - Pakenham ON Canada

O Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "Greater love than this no man has that a man lay down his life for his friends," through the intercession of St. Maximillian Kolbe whose life illustrated such love, we beseech you to grant us our petition of Full Quiver Publishing.

"How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers." Blessed Mother Teresa

"In danger, anguish, or doubt, think of Mary and call upon her! Following her, you will never lose your way. Praying to her, you will never sink into despair. Contemplating her, you will never go wrong." St. Bernard

St. Maximillian Kolbe

Our Lady of the Streets

Maximilian Kolbe (January 8, 1894–August 14, 1941), also known as Maksymilian or Massimiliano Maria Kolbe and "Apostle of Consecration to Mary," born as Rajmund Kolbe, was a Polish Franciscan friar who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in Poland.

He was canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Maximilian Kolbe on October 10, 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and declared a martyr of charity. He is the patron saint of drug addicts, families, imprisoned people, journalists, the pro-life movement, and the many forms of the mass media; including the Internet.

In 1919, he returned to the newly independent Poland, where he was very active in promoting the veneration of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, founding and supervising the monastery of Niepokalanów near Warsaw, a seminary, a radio station, and several other organizations and publications. Between 1930 and 1936, he took a series of missions to Japan, where he founded a monastery at the outskirts of Nagasaki, a Japanese paper, and a seminary. The monastery he founded is currently the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Japan.

During the Second World War, in the Niepokalanów friary, Kolbe provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews. He was also active as a radio amateur, with Polish call letters SP3RN, vilifying Nazi activities through his reports. On February 17, 1941, he was arrested by the German Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison, and, on May 25, was transferred to Auschwitz I as prisoner #16670.

In July 1941, a man from Kolbe's bunker had vanished, prompting Karl Fritzsch, the Lagerführer, to pick 10 men from the same bunker to be starved to death in the notorious torture block, Block 11, in order to deter further escape attempts. (The man who had disappeared was later found drowned in the camp latrine.) One of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, lamenting his family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

After two weeks of starvation, only four of the ten men were still alive, including Kolbe. The cells were needed, and Kolbe and the other three were executed with an injection of carbolic acid in the left arm.

He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on 10 October 1982, in the presence of Gajowniczek.

Kolbe is one of three incredible saints to come out of Poland; along with St. Thérèse of Lisieux and St. Faustina Kowalska. Now due to his devotion to Our Lady, there has dawned an incredible movement of Knights called the "Militia of the Immaculata".