OPINION – Director Martin Scorsese recently released a video series called ‘The Saints,’ featuring Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian, and Maximilian Kolbe — people who risked everything to embody humanity’s most noble and complex trait: faith.

I only recently learned about Father Maximilian Kolbe, a humble Franciscan friar imprisoned in Auschwitz in 1941 for opposing the Nazi regime. When a Jewish prisoner was chosen for execution and cried out for his wife and children, Kolbe stepped forward and said, “I will take his place.”

Asked why he would do such a thing, Kolbe replied simply, “I am a Catholic priest.” He didn’t have to do it; he chose to. His suffering was borne silently, transformed into patience and grace. That act of ultimate charity shone as a beacon of love in a place built on hatred. The Catholic Church later canonized him as a Martyr of Charity, a man who lived and died embodying Christ’s words: “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

At a recent church meeting, we were asked to name someone who had influenced us. I spoke of Father André Schuwer, chairman of the philosophy department at Duquesne University when I was a student there. He spoke seven languages and held doctorates in both philosophy and theology. Schuwer grew up in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, where his parents hid a Jewish family at the risk of their own lives. I have no doubt that had Father Schuwer stood where Father Kolbe did, he would have done the same. His quiet humility and faith shaped the lives of countless students, me included.

Look around at the faces you pass each day. Some are quiet souls of uncommon grace.

There are saints among us.

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