A Love That Steps Forward

In the summer of 1941, in the shadows of Auschwitz, a single act of love split the darkness. 

A prisoner had escaped from a cell block. In retaliation, the guards selected ten men to die slowly in the starvation bunker. One of the chosen cried out in anguish – he had a wife, children, a family who needed him. And then something impossible happened: another prisoner stepped forward. 

“I will take his place.” 

The man who stepped forward was a Polish Franciscan friar named Maximilian Kolbe. His life had already been shaped by devotion, humility, and sacrificial love. But in that moment, Kolbe offered the most Christ-shaped thing anyone can offer: his very life for another. 

For weeks in the bunker he comforted, prayed with, and encouraged the dying prisoners. When the guards came to clear the cell, they found Kolbe still alive amid the silence – thin, weak, praying. He was killed by lethal injection on August 14, 1941. 

He died as he lived: freely, faithfully, with a heart that believed love was stronger than fear, stronger even than death. 

Kolbe’s story is dramatic, almost too luminous for the world we know. But like all true saints, he doesn’t leave us staring only at him – he points us toward Christ. And he invites us to consider where we are called to step forward. 

Most of us will never face a choice as stark as the one Kolbe did. But each day presents us with smaller, quieter versions of the same question: 

Where is God inviting me to step forward in love, not self-protection? 

Where am I being called to give, bless, or stand with another, even when it costs me? 

Our culture trains us for a different posture – one of guarding, accumulating, preserving. We’re taught to stay behind the line, keep our head down, secure our own place first. Fear whispers that we must not give too much, risk too much, love too much. 

But Christ shows us another way. “No one has greater love than this,” Jesus says, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Kolbe simply believed Jesus. He trusted that sacrificial love is not a tragic waste but the very shape of God’s life in the world. 

You and I are invited into that same shape today – not in a bunker but in our homes, workplaces, communities, church, and even in the small corners of our own hearts. 

Maybe stepping forward looks like speaking a hard truth with tenderness. 

Maybe it’s offering forgiveness when resentment feels safer. 

Maybe it’s showing up for someone who can give you nothing in return. 

Maybe it’s resisting cynicism and choosing hope. 

Maybe it’s giving your time, attention, or compassion when you feel stretched thin. 

Where fear draws back, love steps forward. 

Kolbe reminds us that Christian love is not sentimental; it is courageous. It is not passive; it is active. It is not abstract; it is embodied. And it always – always – leads us deeper into the heart of Christ, the One who stepped forward for us all.