The saint that amazes me.

I’ve always been a big history buff. It was my best subject in school and the one thing that keeps me reading. Tell me a story, a true story, about someone or an event that happened and I am all for listening.

Movie history has always been big to me as well. Seeing how I love movies and enjoy discussions about the timeline of events regarding film. Being a film historian (or any kind of historian at that) would be a dream job of mine.

Another event in history that has always interested me is the Holocast. Okay, so not the extreme sadness but the pure will of people going through something so intense and emotional, the stories - the absolute incredibility of these events captivates me everytime. "Life is beautiful" made me cry for days.

I relayed this story to Julie about two months ago, yet, I cannot escape it. I do not find myself religious, all that much, I know what I believe. But, this story - that keeps coming up in my head - rocked me. Made me question everything I do.

This is the story of Maximilian Kolbe. He was a Polish Friar in Auschwitz. In July 1941, a man escaped from his barracks. In response, the Natzi rule was to pick 10 men from the same barracks to be starved to death.

One of the men selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out - screaming "My wife! My children! What will they do?" Kolbe volunteered to take his place saying something along the lines of "I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children."

During the time in the cell, he lead the men in songs and prayers. After three weeks of dehydration and starvation, he and three other men remained alive. He was murdered by lethal injection.

The man who’s place he took remained alive til 1995, and was there when John Paul II canonized Kolbe in 1982. He is now known as "Saint Maximillian Kolbe" the "Patron Saint of our difficult century."

This man died for a stranger. Someone he didn’t even know. He starved for three weeks for him.

I don’t care what you believe. Or don’t believe. But that is a good person. I...well, I don’t know if I could do that. I am sure I could, but I’m not sure I would. I consider myself a good person, but that...yeah, that is saintly. Maximilian deserved to be canonized no matter what he believed. Wow.

Absolutely incredible. People amaze me.