Maximilian Kolbe's Final Offering

In the summer of 1941, a prisoner escaped from Auschwitz. The SS guards, following brutal protocol, selected ten men from Block 14 to die by starvation as punishment. When they called the name of Franciszek Gajowniczek — a young husband and father — his anguished cry echoed across the yard. That is when Franciscan friar Maximilian Kolbe stepped forward from the ranks and said quietly, "I am a Catholic priest. I wish to die for that man."

The guards, stunned, agreed. Kolbe was marched into the starvation bunker with nine others. For two weeks in that concrete cell, while other men screamed and clawed at walls, Kolbe led them in hymns and prayer. Witnesses said he moved among the dying like a pastor tending his flock, offering his wasting body as a vessel of comfort until the very end.

Kolbe understood something Paul pressed upon the Corinthians: this body is not our own. We were bought at a price — not with silver or gold, but with the blood of Christ Himself. Every breath, every heartbeat, every step we take belongs to the One who purchased us.

When Paul writes, "Glorify God in your body," he is not offering a suggestion. He is reminding us of an ownership that has already changed hands. The question is never whether our bodies belong to God. The question is whether we will live as though they do.