Our love of comfort eliminates sacrifice from our lives, and there is no love without sacrifice, so our obsession with comfort is eliminating love.
Maximilian Kolbe demonstrated the power of love and sacrifice in the midst of the brutality of Nazi Germany. In the face of cold indifference, he provided a moment of white-hot glowing love.
Kolbe was a priest in Poland during World War II. After Germany invaded Poland he organized a temporary hospital in the monastery where he lived, with the help of a few brothers who remained. Between 1939 and 1941 they provided shelter and care for thousands of refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution. This included hiding more than two thousand Jewish men, women, and children from the Germans.
Eventually the monastery was shut down. Kolbe was then arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz. In July 1941 a man escaped from the camp. The deputy commander picked ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to discourage others from trying to escape. One of the men selected cried out, "My wife! My children!" Kolbe volunteered to take his place. After two weeks without food or water, Maximilian Kolbe was the only one alive. On August 14, the guards killed him via lethal injection so they could reuse the bunker.
The history of Christianity is paved with sacrifices large and small that echo the love of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross in every place and time. Self-denial and sacrificing for the sake of others is another rich theme that runs through the lives of the saints.
In our modern times we seem addicted to comfort and allergic to sacrifice. Both postures make the Christian life difficult at the least and at most impossible. In order to love, and love deeply, we have to be willing to give up some comfort and take on some sacrifice.
Everywhere you turn, people are making sacrifices so that others can live more abundantly—and we are each called to participate in that. We are each called to lay down our lives in small ways each day so that other people can be raised up in some way.
Maximilian Kolbe had laid down his life in small ways for other people thousands of times before that day in Auschwitz.
You and I may never find ourselves in a situation like that, but each day is filled with opportunities to take someone else's place. Each time we do, that is a holy moment.
What small sacrifice are you willing to make today for somebody else?
