St. Maximilian Kolbe - a Leonardo Defilippis live drama

Hello all!

Welcome to my second blog post!
About two weeks ago I went to a play at my church - a play about the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. You may have heard of him, he was a martyr during World War II at a concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland. Now, before I ramble about how amazing the play was I'll just take a moment to tell you a little about him first:

Born in Poland in 1894, the son of poor, devout Catholics, Raymond Kolbe experienced many interior trials as a seminarian, but he was sustained by a vision of the Blessed Mother who offered him a crown of purity and a crown for martyrdom. He asked for both. 

Plagued by chronic weakened, the young priest - who took the name, Maximilian - went on to form a group of friars called "The Knights of the Immaculate," dedicated to restoring the world to Christ through Mary. Its magazine reached a circulation of one million by 1939, and played a role in preparing the people of Europe spiritually for the coming holocaust of World War II. Maximilian saw the Holy Mother of God as God's agent in confounding darkness which was gathering in opposition to the Church and indeed, covering the whole world. 

In 1941, he was arrested by Gestapo and sent to the infamous Auschwitz death camp where he was forced into slave labor and tortured. It was there that he voluntarily stepped forward to offer his life up for another prisoner, a young married man who was condemned to death. He was executed by lethal injection on August 14th, the eve of the Feast of the Assumption. 

Forty-one years after that heroic act, he was canonized a saint by Blessed Pope John Paul II. St. Maximilian Kolbe is the Patron Saint of, drug addicts, families, imprisoned people, journalists, political prisoners, prisoners, and the pro-life movement.

If you would like to know more about St. Maximilian, click here.

And if you want, here's a trailer of the live drama, performed by the amazing Leonardo Defilippis.  

This guy was mind blowing! It was only him against a big screen backdrop that flashed pictures and World War II clips. He played the characters of: St. Maximilian, a fellow friar who narrated, the devil, a Nazi officer, and the executioner. He switched roles while the lights went out to trade scenes by putting a pair of glasses on for Kolbe, taking them off as the narrator, flinging a red cape over his frier cleric as the devil, and turning the cape inside out (it was grey with Nazi symbols on the collar) for the Nazi officer. And then he had enough time to change into a huge black cloak for the executioner.

He was amazing! It took me a little while to figure out it was only the one guy playing all the characters. His facial expressions, his voice, the way he carried himself all changed so dramatically for each character that it didn't seem cheep!

Some scenes were pretty funny, like when his mom came to visit and Leonardo was taking to thin air (and kissing the "cheek" of thin air :-P). Her voice was recorded and played with the pictures on the screen.

Anyway, it was an amazing show. Look it up at St. Luke Productions to see where it is playing next. Or you can contact them and schedule an event. I know going to see the show is free, but I don't know if its free to schedule one near you or not. (I think it is).

Next year St. Luke Productions is going to be doing a live drama on the Divine Mercy (St. Faustina Kawalska).

Well, I think I'm done (for now).
If you have any questions about the play or about St. Maximilian, feel free to ask in the comments.

TTFN (ta ta for now!)
~Ty